Loneliness in Children and Adolescents: What Do Schools and Teachers Need to Know and How Can They Help?

In this article the author conducts a brief review of the research on childhood loneliness in school-age children and the long-term outcomes, especially in relation to the utility of intervening. She advocates an approach based on increasing social competence, developing mutual friendships and overcoming self-defeating thought patterns. Whole-school or whole-class based interventions are described and recommended. She concludes that all components of loneliness should be addressed, not merely the lack of social skills. She argues that since the long-term outcomes of loneliness are as yet unknown, there is no practical and ethical justification for focusing interventions on an individual. Interventions that involve the whole-school or whole-class are theoretically capable of alleviating loneliness in childhood providing they are not narrowly focused.