Loneliness is on the rise - How to help our kids

It’s Mental Health Awareness Week 2022 and this year’s theme is loneliness.

Loneliness is one of many uncomfortable feelings that we’re not very good at discussing. Somehow, we feel that we shouldn’t feel lonely and with that comes shame. This week, and every week, it’s important to talk about and explore loneliness with our families. We know that the pandemic caused many of us to feel lonely but even before the challenges of mandated isolation, our kids and young people have been telling us that they feel lonely much of the time.

Feeling lonely has been recognised as a key driver of poor mental health and it’s on the rise. A YouGov poll (2019) of 13 – 19-year-olds found 69% said they felt alone ‘often’ or sometimes’ in the last fortnight and 59% feel like they ‘often or sometimes have no one to talk to’. (Mental Health Foundation).

Let’s start with what loneliness is and what it’s not. We experience loneliness when we don’t feel that we have the depth of emotional and social contact that we need. It will feel different for everyone and it’s not the same as being alone. We may be in a room surrounded with people we know and love and feel lonely and we may be alone and feel perfectly content.  

As Brene Brown in her latest book Atlas of the Heart explains, ‘We experience loneliness when we feel disconnected. At the heart of loneliness is the absence of meaningful social interaction”.

We all need to be deeply connected and feel that we belong no matter what our age. We are social beings and connection is a necessary part of being human.  When we need food or water, our body sends us a message through our hunger or thirst, our loneliness is a signal that we need connection. Connection is nourishment too.

Loneliness usually shows up at times of change, uncertainty, or transition – for our kids it may be moving schools or classes, going to university, a change in family circumstances, or the loss of someone we loved.    We don’t always realise that low mood, a dip in self-confidence or irritability can be driven by a need for connection. 

Children can feel lonely if they haven’t honed their social skills, they feel they don’t fit in or if socialising makes them feel uncomfortable or anxious. When they feel lonely for long periods or can’t seem to find the depth of connection that they need, their mental health can suffer.  

How can we help all our kids learn to recognise, acknowledge and manage feelings of loneliness? 

1.    Talk about loneliness

The more we talk about loneliness with our kids the more we normalise it.  Talking about feelings without judgement or shame reminds them that feelings are just what they are – neither good nor bad – just feelings.

There should be no shame in feeling lonely, but loneliness is one of many emotions that we often feel we shouldn’t feel. Our internal voice says, ‘I shouldn’t feel lonely. There must be something wrong with me.”

Noticing and talking about loneliness in other people and ourselves is one way to normalised feelings; ‘I imagine Lilly might feel lonely having moved to a new place. That must feel tough” Keep your conversation light, age appropriate and reassuring – there are times when we all feel lonely. Sharing our own experience can help to start a conversation and put kids at ease. Can you talk about a time when you felt lonely because you didn’t fit in. Perhaps you didn’t feel you really belonged?  I remember skipping lunch in high school as I didn’t feel comfortable walking into the bustling lunchroom without someone to sit with. I felt lonely.

Ask your kids, what does loneliness feel like? When do you feel lonely? "Have you ever felt lonely in a room full of people?" (“Dreaming of isolation/loneliness: Dreams - reddit”) Do you think we all lost a bit of social confidence during lock down? What makes you feel better when you feel lonely? Would you rather have lots of friends or a few really close friends?

As Brene Brown points out ‘to help address loneliness, we must first all learn to recognise it’. If we don’t talk about it, we might not know what we’re looking for and we won’t be able to acknowledge it as part of our human experience.

2.    Be an Emotion Coach

Being an emotion coach is about tuning into our child, being aware of their feelings and needs, taking the time to see things from their perspective and helping them feel heard.  When we emotion coach our kids, we teach them to recognise, understand, express, and ultimately manage all their feelings including loneliness.  Emotion Coaching, developed by US relationship expert Dr John Gottman, is a really effective way build vital emotional intelligence in our children.

We want to teach our kids that all emotions are ok, even the uncomfortable ones. When it feels right (when we’re all calm), we can help our kids put their feelings into words and when they are ready, talk gently about possible strategies to manage the situations that might trigger the emotion.

‘You seem a little quiet. I’m wondering whether you might be feeling a bit lonely?’

‘That sounds really tough. I can see how you might feel anxious about going. I remember last time you went to Freddie’s you weren’t really sure, but you had a great time. That was brave.’

‘I’m thinking you’re really missing Emma now that she has moved away. That might make you feel lonely.’

‘I can see you’re really angry, you probably feel hurt and lonely. That’s hard.’

We don’t have to approve of the behaviour, but we want to empathise with and validate how they might feel.  Loneliness can sometimes feel like fear. Fear triggers our emotional fight flight freeze response and disconnects us from our rational brain. We need, through emotion coaching’s empathy and validation to calm those fears and help our kids feel safe and understood.

We all have a tendency to dismiss, try and fix the problem or acknowledge without deeply empathising. When we hear or think we see that our child feels lonely, it can be particularly uncomfortable. We don’t want our kids to be sad. We want them to have friends and feel happy. It can also be uncomfortable as it may cause us to remember the uncomfortable feeling of when we have felt lonely ourselves. But we are half of the equation. We need to be open, non-judgemental, curious, and respectful of ALL our children’s feeling, they need to trust us in order to share and off load the tough stuff. 

3.    Get curious about how your child experiences the world

How else can we help our kids open up about their feelings and feel connected with a deep sense of belonging? It starts with a profound and genuine interest and curiosity on our part in how the world looks and feels to them.   Being present might just be the most important part of our job.

Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson’s book The Power of Showing Up is all about the importance of presence for our kids. The simple act of consistently and purposely ‘showing up’ and being present in their lives positively impacts who are kids become and how their brains get wired. It’s important for our kids to know that they can count on us again and again to show up with our full attention and interest, building trust and a feeling of security for them to thrive. Part of thriving is building the self-confidence and resilient to manage the tough emotions like loneliness.

How do our kids experience the world? Our introvert may prefer more intimate social gatherings, be overwhelmed by the hustle bustle of school and need time to chill and decompress on her own. She may be hugely intuitive and perceptive and thrive with fewer but close and meaningful friendships. Knowing this we can work with her to find situations which feel comfortable to build confidence and friendships

Equally, our other child may be more of an extrovert who thrives with and needs people. Goodness lockdown was tough. He still may suffer from loneliness, in fact it may be harder to spot, as he surrounds himself with people but still feels he doesn’t belong. He is also more likely to feel lonely when he is alone and may find it hard to open up as being ‘social’ he’s not supposed to feel lonely.

Because we are present and curious about how our kids experience the world, we are better able to see life from their point of view. We may not agree with it, we may not always understand it, but we need to respect it and from there we are better placed to help and support them.  

4.    Tiny steps in the right direction.

Taking steps to deal with feelings of loneliness takes courage every step of the way. We need to remind our kids that loneliness is an internal alert that is telling them that they crave connection. They might need to be brave, but we can send the message that we trust and believe in them.  Opening up and talking about feeling lonely takes courage as does deciding to take little steps forward towards finding connection.

Take every idea one step at a time:

·     Help your child practice their social skills. With younger kids, role plays at home can help If your child finds social interactions difficult.  For all kids, getting prepared emotionally as well as practically helps too. Talking through how they might feel as well as what they might do.

·     Engage the family –Planning family social activities with cousins, close family, friends, and neighbours can help kid’s feel they belong and boost their social confidence.

·     Make a plan - a manageable one – with your child that might be a playdate, a meet up or an activity that they could do with just one friend or in a small group to build that connections muscle and show themselves that they are capable and strong.

·     If your child feels they have not found their ‘tribe’ at school, see if there are any activities, they can do outside school that they might enjoy. We all know how great it feels to find friends with a shared interest. Out of school friends can be helpful to dilute some of the intensity of the school setting.

·     Help your child find their passion. Putting in time and energy to help your child find that thing they love can reap huge rewards. It’s a great antidote to loneliness, it builds confidence and self-esteem, and the self-motivation tends to spill over into other areas of their life.

·     If you feel your child is suffering with loneliness and finding social engagement challenging, if their behaviour has changed or if they have trouble sleeping, talk to their school and their teachers and work together.  If their worries are affecting their ability to lead a normal life and interfering with things that they normally enjoy, they may need professional support.

5.    Keep Talking about screen time

Much attention has been given to the impact that social media and gaming may have on increasing levels of loneliness and anxiety, especially amongst young people. Social media can certainly magnify and exacerbate the fear of missing out, of not being good enough or not belonging but it can also be a place where kids find interests and friends. Talk to your kids, be open minded and interested and aware of where they hang out online, what they do and how it feels for them.   Do they feel better or worse after scrolling through Instagram or checking out where everyone is on Snap Maps?  I know how I feel sometimes! It’s all about balance, communication and boundaries.  Kids, and all of us, need to socialise in person.  For more on healthy screen time, balance, boundaries and what I learned from my own kids, you might like to read this blog that I wrote for US parenting expert Bonnie Harris.

There is stigma around loneliness, yet it is a normal human emotion. Let’s try this week and every week to take it out of the shadows of shame and expose for what it is – a universal experience. How we model our own mental health is vital to our kids. Talking about when we felt or feel lonely and what we do to help manage those feelings sometimes with courage and vulnerability all helps to take the stigma away. Helping our kids feel understood, validated and connected with a sense of belonging is the most important thing we can do to help.