Half of young people in the Netherlands sometimes feel lonely. This is not always caused by a lack of social contacts. Feelings of loneliness also occur among young people who do have these contacts. For example, they may have no one to share their story with because they do not receive genuine interest from others. This is shown by recent research by De Kindertelefoon based on chats and forum topics. The recent coronavirus period has led to a new group of children who feel lonely. “It is important for children to talk about feelings of loneliness. Loneliness has many faces and can be accompanied by low self-esteem, depression and thoughts of suicide,” says Roline de Wilde, director of De Kindertelefoon.
Talking helps
In a quarter of the conversations examined (2019), children themselves indicated that they found it frightening to share their feelings about loneliness with someone in their immediate surroundings. “We regularly speak to children who think they are strange because they feel lonely even though they have friends. We can reassure them by telling them that they are certainly not the only ones,” says Roline de Wilde.
Gerine Lodder, assistant professor in the Department of Developmental Psychology at Tilburg University: “It is very important that children can talk about this. For example, with parents, teachers or anonymously through De Kindertelefoon. Loneliness is the feeling that arises when people experience too few relationships or relationships of too low a quality. This is different for everyone. Feeling lonely sometimes is not a bad thing; it is even normal. But if it occurs over a longer period, despite all kinds of attempts to do something about it, there is a greater chance of developing further problems.”
Many faces
De Kindertelefoon’s research also shows that sometimes there is more going on. Loneliness may then be accompanied by low self-esteem, problems at home or at school, depressive symptoms and thoughts of suicide. The chats and forum topics from 2019 show that loneliness has many faces. For example, children may have few friends, have difficulty making contact, or feel misunderstood, excluded or rejected. Some children have been troubled by loneliness for a long time, while others have experienced it only recently or occasionally.
Lonely because of coronavirus
During the coronavirus period, more children contacted De Kindertelefoon about loneliness. There were an average of 6.5 conversations per day, compared with 5 in 2019 and 4 during the same period (March–May) the previous year. Roline de Wilde: “On the one hand, these were children who had already felt lonely and whose feelings were strengthened to a greater or lesser extent during the coronavirus period. On the other hand, we are also seeing a ‘new group’. These are children who had not previously felt lonely but have been confronted with it in recent times.”
Campaign during the holiday period
“The group that felt lonely during the coronavirus period said that they missed their regular daily activities and contacts. They experienced obstacles that may also arise in the coming weeks—during the summer holidays. That is why we feel it is important to give this issue extra attention now and let children know that they can always turn to us,” says Roline de Wilde. To draw their attention to this, De Kindertelefoon launched the campaign ‘How are you today?’ in mid-July. The campaign was developed together with young people and takes place on social media and via a special topic page on the De Kindertelefoon website. Here, children can see that they are not the only ones who sometimes feel lonely, and Stichting Join us, an expert in the field of loneliness among young people, provides tips, with the most important advice being: ‘talk about it’.
Research
To gain insight into the issue of loneliness, De Kindertelefoon examined anonymized chats and forum topics from 2019 and the coronavirus period. A total of 210 cases were examined through qualitative research: 81 chats and 33 forum topics from 2019, and 80 chats and 16 forum topics from the coronavirus period. Because children speak confidentially with De Kindertelefoon, the data and conversations analyzed can never be traced back to individuals.