Helping Your Children: Loneliness and Isolation

Prompts for Reflecting About Loneliness and Isolation

The following resources – children’s books and short videos – can be helpful to you in fostering conversations with your children or grandchildren about loneliness and isolation.

Some Possible Questions:
  • What is the relationship between being alone and being lonely?
  • Is loneliness always a negative thing?
  • Can you be lonely when you’re with other people?
  • Can you be together with another person even if you’re not in the same place?
  • What does it mean to be invisible?
  • Does everyone feel invisible at some point?
  • If we feel invisible, are we?

Books

By: Arnold Label

One morning Toad goes to Frog’s house to visit him and finds a note on the door that says that Frog wants to be alone. Toad worries that Frog is very sad or doesn’t want to be his friend anymore.

By: Simona Ciraolo

Felipe the cactus needs to be hugged, but his family do not like to hug. So he goes looking for someone who does.

By: Cynthia Voight

At seven years old, a boy’s mother leaves the family and he is left with his father, who is not very demonstrative. When he visits his mother, years later, his experience with her only deepens his feelings of isolation. The story is about struggling to find human connection in a lonely existence.

By: Jess Alborough

Bobo needs a hug and searches for someone to hug when he can’t find his mother.

By: Trudy Ludwig

Brian seems invisible to all of his classmates and his teacher, until one day he makes a friend.

Videos