“It doesn’t feel like anybody’s helping you, or leading you,” one young person told us in a workshop earlier this summer. They are not alone in feeling that way.  This is what many young people have told us recently. Growing up in England today means feeling less secure and less like you belong than young people did just a decade ago. Life feels increasingly high stakes, the people and spaces young people once turned to for support are disappearing, and, crucially, childhood itself has stopped being much fun.We know this because we’ve spent the past few months travelling the country, from the south coast to the North East, speaking to nearly 200 young people and their families to build a picture of what it is really like to be young in England in 2026. Last month we wrote about Britain’s broken social contract and about how young people have lost faith in their future. This blog looks beyond that loss of faith at the daily experiences that help understand it.    What we found is a generation in need of change. While young people today are still dreaming as big as ever, they are less confident that they are going to be successful, that support will be there for them when they need it, and that they will get second chances should they need those too. They no longer feel they belong – at home, at school, in their communities, online.  This is what young people have told us, in their own words.Young people’s life satisfaction has fallen off a cliff – particularly for those worst-offAbove all else, growing up should be fun. Childhood is an opportunity to play and experiment, to learn without some of the worries that come with being an adult. But the young people we spoke to told that they are feeling increasingly stressed, worried, and anxious.  Data on life satisfaction is a cause for concern. All young people in England are less satisfied with their lives now than 10 years ago, but life satisfaction has declined particularly sharply for young people living in the most deprived parts of the country. The proportion of young people aged 16 to 24 across the country who are satisfied with their lives has fallen from 62 percent in 2010 to 44 percent today. In 2016, more than half of young people in the most deprived parts of England were satisfied with their lives – today, only one in three are.