CHILDLINE ADVICE: Children are worrying if their parents can cope financially

Here at Childline, we’re able to take a look at the contacts we’ve received in recent months too, and to look at what young people have told us they’re worried about in the North East and across the United Kingdom.

For the last three years, we’ve seen a 40% increase in children worried about world issues.

In recent months these have focused on the war in Ukraine, as well as the climate crisis, along with the death of the Queen, and now the cost-of-living crisis.

These are issues that affect everyone, however, here at Childline, we’ve also seen a surge in contacts from under 11s over recent years too.

Lately, more and more children are contacting us about money and the financial pressures that their families are facing.

This Christmas, worries will be closer to home than ever before for many young people and children.

We’ve heard from children worried about their parents losing jobs, bills not being paid, concerned about being able to keep warm or have food on the table.

Whatever children are worried about, if they don’t feel able to speak to their parents about it, they can speak to our Childline counsellors at any time, even on Christmas Day.

But while we’ll always strive to have someone at the end of the phone or online, we’re facing some challenges of our own right now too.

Childline lost more than 400 volunteer counsellors across the country during the Covid pandemic, and while we have managed to build our number up since then, we’ve noticed a steady decline since April this year.

That means fewer people working across all our bases and able to support children and young people when they need us most.

Looking ahead to 2023, if you feel you could offer just four hours a week to volunteer for Childline and support children and young people across the UK, we’d love to hear from you.

You can find out more or make a donation to our Be Here for Children Appeal to support us this Christmas at the NSPCC website.