The Good Childhood Report 2016
The 2016 Good Childhood Report showed that 10% of children feel their life has little or no purpose. It also found that girls feel increasingly unhappy with their appearance as they age, and that around half of children had experienced bullying in the past month.
68 pages
The state of children's wellbeing in 2016
It’s reassuring that the majority of children in this country are satisfied with how their lives are going, but we cannot turn our backs on the 10% of children who feel their lives have little meaning and purpose. This year’s report uncovers emerging trends that give great cause for concern, and we must come together to act on these and make changes so that every child in this country has a good quality of life.
In this year’s report, our fifth annual Good Childhood Report, we have analysed data on time trends to look in detail at how children’s well-being is changing over time. A growing gap between girls’ and boys’ happiness gives a clear signal that concerted action is needed to prevent things from getting worse.
At a time when children’s mental health is of increasing concern, this report highlights the links between well-being and mental health issues. As they get older, girls feel increasingly unhappy with their appearance and experience anxiety and depression significantly more than boys. Our findings also continue to show the prevalence of bullying, with around half of all children having experienced bullying in the past month.
What does the report reveal?
What does the report reveal?
Based on the best data available, the average life satisfaction of children aged 11 to 15 in the UK increased a little between 2000 and 2008. However over the period from 2009 to 2014 there is evidence of a slight decrease (for children aged 10 to 15). There is also evidence of trends in children’s satisfaction with particular aspects of their lives. Children became more satisfied with their friendships between 2000 and 2008 – but this trend has reversed significantly over the 2009 to 2014 period. On the other hand, over the most recent five-year period, children’s average satisfaction with their school work has increased significantly.
What does the report reveal?
In addition, we see a continuation of a trend (noted in previous reports) regarding gender differences in children’s satisfaction with their appearance. Between 2009 and 2014 boys’ satisfaction with this aspect of their lives was stable (slightly increased). Over the same period, girls’ satisfaction with their appearance dropped significantly. This seems to be a long-term trend.
The Good Childhood Report
The 2023 Good Childhood Report reveals that too many young people are unhappy with their lives. 10% of the children aged 10 to 17 who completed our household survey in May and June 2023 had low wellbeing, and almost a third were unhappy with at least one specific area of their lives. This is unacceptable. The Government must act now to protect every childhood.
How we can help
Now that we have a good measure of psychological well-being, as well as life satisfaction, a future direction for research is to explore the extent to which these two aspects of well-being are related to other issues in children’s lives. As an example, in this report we show that children’s recent experiences of being bullied are more strongly linked with their life satisfaction than with their psychological well- being. This indicates that there is some value in distinguishing between these different aspects of children’s overall sense of subjective and psychological well- being, and points to a potentially fruitful direction for future research.
