Calls to Childline Up 100% in 5 Years
As an adult psychotherapist you may wonder why I am featuring a story about children today. Well, simply put, children grow into adults and the problems of the child may often become problems of the adult unless steps are taken to deal with these whilst a person is still a child.
The news today tells us that calls to Childline have increased 100% over the past 5 years. A worrying enough statistic, however, when coupled with the fact that these call have increased where children as young as 10 are speaking about wanting to commit suicide, and the figures become terrifying.
What pressures can be so great, that a 10 year old is thinking of ending his or her life before it even begins? I think there is a lesson here that we as adults need to heed. Are we placing too much onto our children? Are we not looking after them in the way that most of us were looked after? Are we not protecting them from the adult world enough so that they are able to grow naturally into it? These are questions that surely deserve discussion and answering, if we are not to damn the next generation to lives of psychological and emotional misery.
I do take heart though, the fact that children are reaching out may be an indication that the stigma of emotional and psychological distress may actually skip a generation and that these children may be more emotionally intellegant than we were at that age.
