[continued from previous message] 
  
 recognise that tackling poverty, deprivation and exclusion is just as 
 important for drug misuse. 
  
 HAPPINESS 
  
 By Richard House, Lecturer in psychotherapy and counselling 
  
 I think family life and relationships are central to children's sense of 
 happiness and I have found any number of clients coming from rich 
 families who have had every material advantage describe their childhood 
 as unhappy and lonely. 
  
 It would be stupid to say wealth is not relevant at all to happiness but 
 there are more important things for children's sense of well-being, such 
 as human relationships, a sense of being loved, and family and community 
 life has to be really important. In the UK, family life seems to have 
 disintegrated and seems much more fragile than in other countries. All 
 the research coming out of psychoanalysis and sociology concludes that 
 if children don't live a reasonably stable family life, it can have 
 major negative effects. 
  
 I also think the education system adds to children's unhappiness, in 
 terms of testing. Children's love of learning gets compromised which can 
 have a negative effect. Also, in the past 10 to 12 years, the school age 
 has crept down to about four, and in countries higher up this research, 
 children don't tend to start formal schooling until maybe around five or 
 six. 
  
 Another factor is that we live in a society where parents are led to 
 believe that there is so much to fear in letting their children play out 
 that they don't grow up doing the things they want to do like building 
 dens, exploring and climbing trees. Instead, they end up watching videos 
 or sitting in front of their computers. 
  
 FAMILIES 
  
 By Jonathan Bradshaw, Professor of Social Policy, University of York 
  
 Relationships with family and friends matter a great deal to children 
 and are also important to long-term emotional and psychological 
 development. 
  
 The United Kingdom compares poorly in that area with other countries. 
  
 That is partly because we have the second highest proportion of 
 single-parent families of the countries examined and the second highest 
 proportion of children living in step-families. Statistics suggest those 
 factors can lead to a greater risk of dropping out of school, of leaving 
 home early, of poorer health, of low skills and of low pay. We have 
 relatively low proportions of children who report eating their main meal 
 with parents several times a week, although we don't do too badly on 
 parents talking regularly to their children. 
  
 Most distressingly, we have the lowest proportion reporting that their 
 peers are kind and helpful - less than half say that is the case 
 compared with more than 80 per cent in Switzerland. 
  
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