Who Really Gets Me? Loneliness and Connection in Childhood and Adolescence
When children and teenagers talk about feeling lonely, that may feel confusing to us because they don’t seem alone. They may have friends at school, people to sit with at lunchtime, classmates they talk to and activities they’re involved in. From the outside, they look socially connected, but their experience of those relationships may be quite different.
A child can have a group of friends and still feel the absence of one close friend who really knows them and just gets them. For others, there might be the beginnings of friendships, but those relationships don’t yet feel close or safe enough for them to relax and be themselves. They know they want deeper connections but have no idea how to get from talking to someone at school to actually feeling close to them.
When a child tells us, “I don’t have any friends”, it can be tempting to reassure them. We know they played with someone yesterday, we’ve heard them talking about friends at school, or their teacher has told us they have people to spend time with, so we remind them of all the evidence that they do, in fact, have friends. Or we default to trying to engineer connections by organising playdates or encouraging them to join social clubs.
But are we really hearing what they are trying to tell us?
They may have friends but still feel awkward within the group, unsure of where they fit or conscious of having to work hard socially. They may be longing for the ease of someone who just "gets them", where they don't feel they have to work so hard to feel comfortable and emotionally safe.
The longing for a best friend
I think adults can be a little wary when children become focused on having a best friend. We know friendships change, we don’t want them to become dependent on one person, and we generally see having a broader group of friends as a good thing.
But it is worth being curious about what a child actually means when they say they want a best friend. They may be describing a friendship that feels secure and mutual, where they trust that the other person likes them, can share more of themselves and don’t have to continually work out where they stand.
As children move through later childhood and adolescence, what they want from friendships changes too. Feeling understood, trusting someone and being able to share more of themselves can become increasingly important.
Telling a lonely child, “But you have lots of friends”, may therefore offer very little reassurance. They probably already know who they spend time with. What they are struggling with is how those relationships feel.
Getting from knowing someone to feeling close to them
One of the harder parts of friendship is that a young person can know exactly what they want and still have no idea how to create it. To be fair, this probably goes for adults as well!
Getting closer to someone involves taking small interpersonal risks. You say a little more about yourself, initiate contact when you don’t have to, show someone you enjoy their company or suggest spending time together without knowing exactly how it will be received.
For a young person who already feels socially unsure, there can be a lot riding on those interactions. Talking to someone in class may feel manageable because there is a reason to talk and something obvious to talk about. Sitting next to them at lunch, messaging them outside school or suggesting they do something together requires more initiative and brings the possibility of rejection.
For some young people, messaging friends online can feel much easier than navigating those same relationships in person. They can have the beginnings of the friendships they want online, but then still feel awkward and uncomfortable when they are actually at school.
Connection at home
Peers are only one part of a child’s experience of connection. How known and understood they feel at home matters as well, and this can become complicated when family life is genuinely loving but also very busy.
Modern family life can involve an enormous amount of time together without much space to just be together. By the time we juggle work, school, homework, sport, dinner, appointments and everything involved in getting a family through the week, we can spend hours with our children focused on getting somewhere, doing something or preparing for whatever needs to happen next.
Children are also remarkably good at wanting to connect at inconvenient times. They start telling you the complicated story about what happened at lunchtime while you’re trying to cook dinner, want to show you something when you’re halfway through an email, or suddenly become ready for a significant conversation when they were supposed to be asleep twenty minutes ago and you’re absolutely exhausted and need to go to bed as well!
It isn’t realistic for parents to be available for every one of these moments, and I don’t think children need us to be. But it is worth noticing how easily connection can become another thing we intend to get to when life settles down.
The things children want to share can look fairly insignificant from an adult perspective, but letting us into those parts of their world is one of the ways they experience being known.
Loneliness and making space for connection
When a child tells us they feel lonely, there’s an art to truly hearing that without moving quickly to reassurance or problem-solving. Rather than getting caught up in whether they technically have friends, we can get curious about how they actually feel within those relationships.
Who do they feel most comfortable with? Are there friendships they wish were closer? What makes taking that next step difficult? What does being at school actually feel like for them?
They may need some practical help creating opportunities for connection, but they may also need us to understand how vulnerable and awkward building closer relationships can feel.
We can’t create the close friendships our children want for them, and we can’t protect them from all the uncertainty and rejection that comes with figuring out relationships, much as we might like to! But we can try to make home a place where they feel known, where there is room for connection, for moments of just being together and learning about their world.
We don’t always need to fix or reassure. We can simply walk alongside them and let them know, “I hear you. I remember how hard this can be. I’m here.”
Related reading: The Quiet Loneliness of Modern Life — a reflection on adult friendship, loneliness and the everyday connection we can find ourselves missing.
Support for children and parents
If this resonates with what you’re noticing in your child or teenager and you’re unsure how best to support them, I offer parent consultation as well as counselling for children and adolescents.
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