The Children’s Society has just released this year's “Good Childhood” report – an annual research project into the subjective happiness of children and young people. They report that of 15 countries surveyed (Romania, Colombia, Spain, Israel, Estonia, Norway, Ethiopia, Algeria, Germany, Nepal, Turkey, Poland, South Africa, England and South Korea) English children have the lowest overall life satisfaction. They are also last or near the bottom of the table for children's body image, happiness about appearance, happiness at school, and self-confidence. This is based on subjective research carried out using surveys with over 53000 children.

Now, of course, we need some perspective. Few people would seriously claim that British children are worse off than their Syrian or Somali equivalents. Even compared to the other countries in the data a cynic might point out that British have relatively little about which to complain. Perhaps we are just a nation of moaners whose children have managed to forget the Blitz spirit amid the modern luxuries of Ipods, internet, games consoles and soft schooling.

Maybe. There is one way of looking at this as suggesting that perhaps we (as a nation – pointing no fingers!) really have got soft, introspective and narcissistic and raised a generation of children in that image. The argument goes: in an England of declining religion, ideology and community perhaps the only value we have left is our own sense of self-worth assessed by material gain and our own self-image.

Such a sweeping diagnosis as the cause of all this childhood sadness would be nigh-on impossible to prove, and at any rate it seems difficult to think that England would be significantly worse in that modern condition than Germany, South Korea, Estonia, Norway or several others of the countries surveyed. It is worth investigating, however, because if there is something about our educational (or broader family) culture that is making children unhappy then that clearly ought to worry us. The report itself, beyond reporting the numbers, makes little effort at explaining why England does so badly on some of these issues, calling instead for further research.

I am struck that many of the particular issues on which British children ranked worse than others do seem to revolve around what I consider to be quite “adult” problems. I do wonder if part of the problem is that we impose adult worries onto younger and younger children. Consider, for example, that British children are the most examined of any children in the world. The education system seems to have arrived at a place where the default setting is a constant, grinding pressure.

This may well, in some sort of perverse way, prepare children for the workplace – it’s also little wonder that it leaves them unhappy at school. Children are increasingly taught to evaluate themselves according to very adult criteria – via tests that are important because without them, you are relentlessly told, you cannot go to university, get a good job, or live the dream. Pressuring older teenagers to think about their future and take public exams seriously seems sensible; pressuring those barely into secondary school seems like overkill. The drop-off in happiness at school between year six (final year of primary school) and eight, as reported in this Children’s Society report and in other research is astonishing.

It is a similar story with body-image and self-esteem. Among British girls aged 10-11, ten per cent are unhappy with their appearance. Over the next two years, that rockets to 25 per cent. Twelve or thirteen years old seems very young to be so upset and worried by body and appearance issues. Somehow we have made secondary school education, and teenage life more generally, one long adult training exercise without ever really wondering whether that was sensible or desirable.

Then again, maybe the system is right – maybe it ought to be the responsibility of parents to do the development of the human person while schools simply focus on academic performance? The Catholic Church teaches that the family is “uniquely suited to teach and transmit cultural, ethical, social, spiritual and religious values essential for the development and well-being of its own members and of society” – in which case maybe we should leave the family to it. Whoever ultimately takes responsibility, however, has a serious issue to confront, not least in terms of simply understanding the underlying issue.

My criticism of the Children’s Society report would be that its solutions do not go nearly far enough. After all the damning numbers they only propose more counsellors in schools, better data collection and an increase in mental health funding. Those would no doubt be helpful – but where is the more research into the root cause of the unhappiness? Perhaps it is time for a more fundamental debate about what education is for and what we want it to produce.

Ben Ryan is a Researcher at Theos. @BenedictWRyan

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