Is well-becoming important for children and young people? Evidence from in-depth interviews with children and young people and their parents

Purpose: This study explores how important well-becoming factors appear to be to children during childhood. We define well-becoming as the indicators which predict children and young people’s future wellbeing and opportunities. The priority for this work was to explore whether well-becoming might be an important factor to include in outcome measures for children and young people. The inclusion of well-becoming indicators could ensure that opportunities to invest in promoting wellbeing in children’s futures are not missed.

Methods: In-depth, qualitative interviews (N=70) were undertaken with children and young people aged 6 to 15 years and their parents. Analysis used constant comparison and framework methods to investigate whether well-becoming factors were considered important by informants to children and young people’s current wellbeing.

Results: The findings of the interviews suggested that children and young people and their parents are concerned with future well-becoming now, as factors such as future achievement, financial security, health, independence, identity, and relationships were identified as key to future quality of life. Informants suggested that they considered it important during childhood to aspire towards positive outcomes in children and young people’s futures.

Conclusion: The study findings, taken alongside relevant literature, have generated evidence to support the notion that future well-becoming is important to current wellbeing. We have drawn on our own work in capability wellbeing measure development to demonstrate how we have incorporated a well-becoming attribute into our measures. The inclusion of well-becoming indicators in measures could aid investment in interventions which more directly improve well-becoming outcomes for children and young people.