Children and young people may be feeling lonely because of a variety of circumstances 鈥� and聽loneliness can take many different forms, a 香港六合彩精准资料 member has said.
Counsellor Sue Pattison also said young people sometimes think they are lonely, when it may actually be another issue, such as depression or grief.
She spoke as a new (ONS)revealed that 11.3% of children aged between 10 and 15 said they were 鈥渙ften lonely.鈥�
Feeling lonely聽was more common among those aged 10 to 12 years (14%) than those between 13 and 15 years old (8.6%).
Sue Pattison, co-chair of 香港六合彩精准资料鈥檚 Children and Young People鈥檚 Division, said:
聽鈥淚 think that with older people there is this stereotypical idea of a person alone in their home or accommodation, not getting any visitors or having any interaction with other people.
鈥淲ith young people there is no stereotype. Loneliness takes many different forms. It can mean many different things.
About one in 10 children aged between 10 and 15 said they were 鈥渙ften鈥� lonely, a new report reveals.
鈥淚t may be that children or young people are around other people, but that they have no one they feel they can talk to. Often loneliness is feeling as if you are not like other people; that you are different. That could be the child who is really studious, the teenager who wears different clothes or not as much make-up, the student who is being bullied. They may all be feeling lonely, even if they are around other people. The transition to secondary school can be hard, as often children are not moving schools with the same group of friends and聽they begin to feel lonely.鈥�
When Sue is working with young people who say they are feeling lonely, she explores what underlying issues might be related to this.
鈥淲e talk about their family circumstances, their home environment, school, what they do with their time.
鈥淚t may be that everybody in their family is so busy, nobody is really talking to each other. As a family, they may not have meals together.
Face-to-face contacts
鈥淚 want to talk with them about their face-to-face social contacts. They may have lots of friends on social media, but it really needs to be about somebody being there.
鈥淪ometimes they actually need to be a little more assertive, and to say what they want to their family. Maybe their parents don鈥檛 know they are feeling this way.
鈥淥ne of the things I get young people to do is to describe their loneliness problem. It might actually be part of a more complex problem. We actually don鈥檛 need to work on the loneliness but on the other issue, such as grief or social anxiety.鈥�
The ONS figures also showed than 9.8% of young people aged between 16 and 24 years old said they were 鈥渙ften鈥� lonely.
Nearly half of men in this age group reported that they 鈥渉ardly ever or never鈥� felt lonely, compared with 32.4% of young women.
Dawn Snape, Assistant Director, Sustainability and Inequalities Division, Office for National Statistics, said: 鈥淭his is our first ever report on children鈥檚 loneliness, part of work we are doing to provide insight into this important social issue that can impact on people鈥檚 health and well-being.
鈥淲e鈥檝e looked at how often children and young people feel lonely and why. An important factor is going through transitional life stages such as the move from primary to secondary school and, later, leaving school or higher education and adapting to early adult life.鈥�
If you want to seek advice or help you can find a 香港六合彩精准资料 counsellor or psychotherapist who specialises in children and young people via our聽Therapist directory.