Youth between the ages of 14 and 15 are the children most likely to feel dissatisfied with their lives, according to a British study from The Children’s Society. About 15 percent of 14- and 15-year-olds say they feel badly about themselves, compared to 4 percent of 8-year-olds.

These teens can be despondent for a number of reasons, including school, appearance and their perceived lack of freedom. Moreover, after several years of seeing children’s happiness rates rise in the annual study, levels of happiness apparently have plateaued and are now trending down.

“The well-being of our future generation in the UK is critical,” says Matthew Reed, chief executive of The Children’s Society. “So it is incredibly worrying that any improvements this country has seen in children’s well-being (in) the past two decades appear to have stalled. We should be paying particular attention to improving the happiness of this country’s teenagers. We can’t simply dismiss their low well-being as inevitable ‘teen grumpiness.'” (BBC)

Paul Asay has covered religion for The Washington Post, Christianity Today, Beliefnet.com and The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. He writes about culture for Plugged In and wrote the Batman book God on the Streets of Gotham (Tyndale). He lives in Colorado Springs with wife Wendy and his two children. Follow him on Twitter.