The number of UK children calling the national helpline Childline because they feel lonely has risen sharply. From April 2008 to March 2009, 5,525 children called the helpline due to loneliness, sadness or isolation, compared to 1,853 five years earlier. A further 4,399 children were counselled about loneliness as an additional problem, bringing the total to 9,924 – 6% of calls to the helpline. Counselors say changes within families and society could be behind the rise. Childline counsellors say changes within family structures and society as a whole could be behind the rise in these calls. ”Everyone’s so busy all the time,” said one counselor. ”The fact that families and people in general increasingly don’t eat together, and then go off and do their own things… I think that social skills among younger people are not being encouraged,” said another. They also suggest the rise may also be down to youngsters being better able to talk about feelings of loneliness. ”Some of the children who contact Childline are lonely because their parents are rowing or divorcing. Others are lonely because someone they love has died. (full article)
Archives For children
Drunk 4-Year-Old Boy Steals Christmas
The boy followed his father’s footsteps and was found wandering the streets at 1:45 am drinking a beer. ”He runs away trying to find his father,” said his mother. “He wants to get in trouble so he can go to jail because that’s where his daddy is.”
What’s Marriage About?
Here’s an old video I ran across recently and thought I would share it with you. I often wonder if children are exposed to enough positive images of marriage.
The research is clear, children who live with their own two married parents do better overall.
Link: study: Tips to reduce the likelihood that children will ever drugs
via Washington Times: 1) Keep lines of communication open with your children. 2) Stay connected (without micromanaging), and, especially, keep Dad engaged. 3) Set good personal examples; model the behaviors you want to see. 4) Set reasonable rules and enforce them without being punitive. 5) Know where your children are and who their friends are. 6) Eat dinner together regularly. Sharing good food is certainly wonderful, but the “magic” in eating together stems from the undivided attention and “face time” it creates for everyone. 7) Cultivate a religious life as a family. 8) Stay connected to a larger community.
How to save your marriage from your kids
Experts warn that ignoring spouse because of kids could hurt marriage and ultimately bad for the kids.
Some tips: Create warm welcomes and steal 20 minutes to be together. Put sex on your schedules and date night can be a movie at home… (full article)
Link: study: Damage from parental split ‘can last into adulthood’
Children whose parents separate are twice as likely to under-achieve at school, suffer mental health problems and struggle to form lasting relationships, according to research commissioned by Ed Balls. Effects of family breakdown can be ‘enduring’ and persist well into adulthood, the study for the Schools Secretary concluded. It also reported that one in six children growing up in stepfamilies show social and emotional problems, against one in 10 whose parents stayed together. The study suggests that pre-marital couples classes – which cover communication skills and the importance of sharing experiences – could reduce divorce rates. The effects on children are worse if mothers become depressed or anxious and if parenting standards slip, the report said.
Link: Lessons in love – from Dad
via Micah Toub: I’m coming around to thinking my father isn’t a complete failure in relationships. This isn’t an easy idea to embrace given his two divorces and series of between-marriage girlfriends that didn’t work out (including that one who busted into our house during my summer vacation and scattered his torn-up love letters on the carpet). But now that I’m older, and have gone through my own series of relationships, including one divorce, I’m looking back and thinking I may have judged my father too harshly. And I wonder, can I learn lessons from his mistakes without taking the avoid-becoming-those-things-I-abhor-in-him-at-all-costs attitude? According to Geraldine Piorkowski, a clinical psychologist and author of Adult Children of Divorce: Confused Love Seekers , we can indeed shoot ourselves in the foot if we overreact to the qualities we think make our dads bad at love. “Negative models are often extreme,” Dr. Piorkowski says. “So, for example, if your father used to be a very angry man, you’ll tend to blame yourself for even normal anger. You limit your repertoire, whereas the healthy individual has a wide range of responses.” Dr. Piorkowski says a person in that kind of situation may try to be a “superkind Superman,” but instead end up being an emotionally two-dimensional “robot.”
Link: study: The One Hundred Billion Dollar Man
The federal government spends $99.8 billion dollars every year on programs – such as child support enforcement and anti-poverty efforts – that support father-absent homes. Download Full Study PDF (1.7 M)
Family time? We can spare 45 minutes for a TV dinner.
The findings, from a poll of 3,000 children and parents, signal a deterioration of the family unit. An average family manages to get together for just 45 minutes a day, the poll found. And most of that time is spent either in front of the TV or eating. (link)
