1 Introduction

The child well-being approach, as a multidimensional and a holistic approach, puts the quality of life and happiness of the child in the forefront and aims at increasing the capabilities of the child in accordance with the basic indicators in each domain. The child well-being approach combines both objective life conditions and children’s subjective experiences.Footnote 1 Consulting children as experts in their own lives in the field of child well-being provides important insights about what constitutes their well-being (Ben-Arieh 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010a, b; Ben-Arieh and Frønes 2011; Ben-Arieh et al. 2001; Casas et al. 2013; Fattore et al. 2007; Holte et al. 2014). Methodological tools for including children’s perspectives are developed and they are more and more actively involved in measuring and monitoring their well-being through various participatory methods (Due and Riggs 2014; Estola et al. 2014; Fattore et al. 2009, 2012; Newton and Ponting 2013; Messina and Zavattini 2014). Adult researchers, with their biases and stereotypes, need to be challenged by these types of studies that are conducted with children (Casas et al. 2013:195) by giving attention to the issues of power and representation in child research (Christensen 2004; Hennessy and Heary 2008).

There are an increasing number of studies that try to understand the meaning of well-being (Hood 2007; September and Savahl 2009; Kral et al. 2011; Foley et al. 2012; Spilsbury et al. 2012; Newton and Ponting 2013; Due and Riggs 2014) and the meaning of happiness (Thoilliez 2011; Uusitalo-Malmivaara 2012 and Schwarz 2014) through the lens of children. There are also studies which focus on child poverty and their well being from the children’s point of view (Andresen and Fegter 2011; Harju and Thorod 2011; Ridge 2007). Among these studies, Andresen and Fegter (2011)’s article is more relevant to well-being literature as it also discusses children’s ideas on what constitutes a good life with reference to Nussbaum’s capability approach (2001). This research however contributes the existing but limited literature by focusing on how children evaluate already existing well-being domains and the indicators and also asks whether children suggest a new domain and/or indicators for their well-being. By asking what might make an imaginary child happy or unhappy, the research aims to discover what children prioritize for their own well-being. By using both questionnaires and focus groups, the aim is to contribute the literature by reflecting children’s own point of view as experts in their own lives.

Based on the existing literature and the research that was conducted for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Turkey to evaluate child well-being indicators from the perspectives of children in order to advance the nation-wide monitoring of their well-being in Turkey,Footnote 2 the aim of this article is therefore to demonstrate what children prioritize for each domain for a un/happy child.Footnote 3 By sharing the findings of the Turkish case, the article aims to contribute to the current literature by demonstrating how children describe “a(n) un/happy child”. Although what children prioritize with respect to gender, socio-economic background, and age change, one can still list who is a happy child through the lens of children in Turkey who participated in the research: A happy child who feels fit and strong; who has positive mood; who can go to vacation and trips, and who does not wear old clothes; who has a room and a table in her/his house; has high grades in the school which has a clean and big garden where s/he can do sports; lives in a family with no risk of drugs; fighting and violence; realizing a hobby that s/he likes; spending time with her/his family and her/his friends and is loved by her/his friends.

2 Method

In the first Child Well-being research that was conducted in Istanbul, Turkey, based on the existing literature, eight domains were determined for measuring child well-being: Material Well-being, Education, Health, Risk and Security, Housing and Environment, Participation, Relations and Subjective Well-Being (Uyan-Semerci et al. 2012). Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected. Although the constitution of the indicators and the variables under the domains were based on the indicators and the variables in international comparative indexes, the characteristics of Turkey were also given attention. Based on this first research and the following UNICEF Turkey Wellbeing Document (Muderrisoğlu et al. 2013) the domains were reduced to five, being Health, Material Well-being, Education, Risk, and Relationships in this research. However, the study was designed to cover all the indicators of the above-mentioned eight domains within these five. “Subjective Well-being” cross cut all of the domains. “Housing and Environment” was covered as part of the domains “Material Well-being” and “Risk”, and “Participation” was addressed as part of the domains of “Relations” and “Education.”

The first tool used in the field research was the questionnaire aiming to discover the factors that “make a child happy” in four domains and “unhappy” in two domains—for material well-being they are asked both. The children were not asked about what made them happy or unhappy, but what might make an imaginary child so. Going over the existing literature and different well-being indexes, self-administered questionnaires were prepared by the research team having taken age and other differences (working children, disability, etc.) into consideration in order to explore what children prioritize for their well-being. Taking age differences into consideration, three versions of the questionnaires were prepared in a child-friendly manner. The questionnaire forms were tested in a pilot study with cognitive interviewing technique, and checked whether the sentences and definitions could be understood by children. Some sentences were revised to make them more comprehensible.

The team collected data using a mixed methodology, defined as “evaluative focus group discussions.” This methodology was based on a two-stage data collection strategy. The first stage was a typical, self-completion survey where participants completed questionnaires prepared by the research team. A second stage of data collection procedure followed the self-completion of the questionnaires distributed by the researchers. The participants completed and returned them to researchers. After a short break to rest, the second stage started in the form of a focus group discussion. The researcher, acting as moderator, read the completed questionnaire and asked the children to talk about their answers without asking them what answers they had given in the questionnaire. The discussions were recorded after the permission of the participants was secured and transcribed afterwards. By asking follow-up questions and facilitating a discussion, the researcher sought to understand the reasoning and implicit motives of participants in answering questions. The focus of each group was different depending on its characteristics, such as their working or living conditions. The second instrument was the focus group discussion, for which a moderation guide was used by researchers. The guide was composed of questions that had been asked in the previous phase and some prompts for eliciting qualitative data and motivating the participants to share their ideas.

Since the participants of the research were not chosen through random sampling, it is not possible to use these findings to make inferences for the whole Turkish child population. In our research design we tried to consider diversity across and within groups, to prevent a selection bias. Meanwhile, this sampling methodology, although its representativeness is highly restricted, can be classified under the category of convenience sampling.

The findings of this phase of research were discussed in the workshop organized by UNICEF Turkey, and a verification phase was conducted afterwards. The questionnaire and data requirement sheets were reformulated using the findings of the field research and insights of the participants in the workshop. An updated version of the questionnaire was finalized, and, as suggested by UNICEF Turkey, the participants of the 14th National Child Forum completed the final version of the questionnaire. The findings of this final stage are also included in the second part of the report,Footnote 4 but they are not included in this paper.

In seven provinces—each from a different region (+Düzce—with the aim of reaching the children of seasonal agricultural workers)—three different age groups of ten children (8–11; 12–14; 15–18), 562 in total, completed questionnaires (three different versions due to age differences). Percentage of male and female participants is equal, and average age is 13.5 with a median score of 13 and standard deviation of 2.68. Geographical distribution of interviews are presented in the Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
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Geographical distribution of ınterviews

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A discussion on each domain—with the drawing of a happy child, unhappy child in school / at home / in the neighborhood—was conducted, plus three in-depth interviews (two disabled children and one child working in the agriculture sector as a seasonal worker) were conducted.

With the aim of reflecting the diversity as much as possible children of disadvantaged groups were also included: children with disabilities; Roma children; working children; seasonal child workers in agriculture; children living in villages; children of forced migration and children staying in dormitory.

The first phase of data collection had three components. A survey conducted by means of a self-administered questionnaire was the first stage. The children were expected to answer two different sets of questions. All participants picked three options from a given list, without ranking. The participants from the 12–14 and 15–18 age groups were asked to rank the three options according to importance. The project team decided against assigning an ordering exercise to the youngest age group so as not to create an extra cognitive load on them. In our paper, we decided to exclude the results of this ranking exercise.

3 Findings

3.1 Health

Hill and Tisdall (2008) study children’s perception of health and illness by dealing with the question whether young children are incapable of understanding illness in similar ways to adults or not. How children conceptualize health and illness is an area that clearly needs to be explored. Thus Burton and Phipps (2010) states that children’s own health status is one of the most important correlates of teen self-assessed life satisfaction. Within the limits of our study, we just focus on health as the first domain of child well-being and asked participants to pick three characteristics of a happy child in this domain (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
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Domain 1: Selected health ındicators, percentage of respondents, three responses

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According to 69 percent of participants, ‘feeling fit and strong’ is one of the three leading characteristics of a happy child. The second and third leading characteristics are having a positive mood (56 percent) and “being able to do any sports activity.” Being clean is the fourth most preferred characteristic. As far as the leading four characteristics are concerned, we can say that children gave preference to three different aspects of health: being fit/strong and the ability to participate in sports activities represented physical fitness, while positive outlook was an indicator of mental fitness. Being clean was a behavioral act, perhaps an indicator of access to sanitary resources, as an indirect symbol of physical capital.

In order to understand how the importance given to the different indicators of domains was analyzed, we conducted a series of multivariate analyses where the dependent variable is binary, selected is equal to 1, else is equal to 0. Our independent variables are gender (male = 1, female = 2), socioeconomic status calculated by using the education level of father and mother having three categories from lower socioeconomic status to higher, and finally age, as a continuous variable. Descriptive statistics of independent variables are presented in the annex.

We preferred to use Generalized Linear Models because of their flexibility. Table 1 presents the output of these analyses conducted for our first domain, Health.

Table 1 Determinants for selecting health indicators (Exp(B) coefficients)
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Footnote 5

The above table presents the findings of our analyses. Coefficients are exponential(B) coefficients showing the increase in propensity of picking an item of a given respondent. For example, if a participant has a socioeconomic score of 1, her propensity to pick our first item “feeling fit and strong” is 0.42 of another participant with a SES score of 3, which is the base category. The probability of picking this item for a respondent with a SES of 2 is 0.58. This finding shows that as SES score increases, the propensity to pick this item also increases. Statistical significance of coefficients is marked with stars, and none of the other variables is statistically significant.

The propensity to pick “positive mood” as an indicator of well-being is dependent on several factors. For example, the probability of a male participant picking this item is half that of a female participant, since its coefficient is 0.5 and statistically significant. As the SES score of the child increases, her tendency to select this item increases significantly. Moreover, as age increases, the propensity to select this item increases by 24 %. Meaning that “having a positive mood” is generally selected by female, older and relatively richer children.

Although the previous research show that gender matters in variation subjective health (Hill and Tisdall 2008; Burton and Phipps 2010; Bradshaw and Bloor 2011) effect of the socioeconomic status on the perception of children in defining who is a happy child is an important finding that needs to be explored with more comparative studies. Universality and particularity of children’s perception of needs and how this contribute to their well-being are two related points to study.

The table above shows that “being clean” is important for children from lower socioeconomic status. The propensity of a child with a SES score of 1 is 2.7 times higher than a child from the highest SES category. This score is 2 times for a child from the second category. As age increases the propensity for picking this item decreases by 0.08 percent (1–0.92).

There is a similar difference between children dependent on their socioeconomic status, in the case of “having three meals per day” as an indicator of a happy child. The lowest category has a coefficient of 1.64 showing that a child from this category tends to select this option 64 % more compared to a child from the third category. The difference between the second and third socioeconomic categories is not statistically significant. Similar to previous items, as age increases, the importance given to this item decreases.

The above table shows that children have different conceptions of a happy child within the health domain. Especially the socioeconomic status of a child defines her point of view. For children from a lower SES being clean and having three meals per day are important; while being strong and fit and having a positive mood are generally picked by children from a higher SES. This difference may be an indicator of how children from lower socioeconomic status are dealing with material problems whereas children of more educated parents tend to emphasize aesthetic or self-actualization problems. On the other hand, age also matters. As age increases, the importance given to material problems decreases and aesthetic/self-actualization problems become more important.

In our sample, we can assume that majority of the children who participated in the survey were healthy and we think this situation affected the way they conceptualized and prioritized the domain of health. This finding is also in line with the Finnish case in which children make a ranking list of 12 for what they think is more important for happiness: ‘better health’ is in the 11th place (Uusitalo-Malmivaara 2012: 609).

Psychological well-being, in the sense of having a positive mood, was repeatedly mentioned. In the focus groups, being teased with respect to being “overweight” or “being too short” was also noted. The previous studies on children happiness also showed the importance of physical appearance. Holder and Coleman (2008) in their research finds that variables related to physical appearance along with temperament and popularity are related to children’s happiness with the note that physical appearance contribute more to self-esteem and therefore happiness. Hill and Tisdall (2008: 304) also find that there is gender difference with respect to appearance and also with respect to eating habits /dieting. Burton and Phipps also state that gender matters: girls are less satisfied than boys of the same age with respect to appearance (2010: 221).

The final point that needs to be underlined is the disabled children. The disabled children who participated the focus groups underlined the social exclusion dimension of the health issue. Although two in-depth interviews and one focus group study with disabled children were conducted, the domain of health requires further research particularly with disabled and unhealthy children. This domain, in fact, shows how when health is missing, it endangers well-being substantially, but how its existence does not guarantee happiness.Footnote 6

3.2 Material Well-Being

Our second domain of well-being aims to cover the perceptions of children on material related indicators of well-being. Although there is a rich literature which shows the importance of material wellbeing for children’s overall well-being (Ash and Huebner 2001; Burton and Phipps 2010),Footnote 7 children’s own perception what they prioritize in this domain is very limited. The literature on children’s subjective well-being underline the importance emotional and social relationships which is definitely crucial (Ben-Arieh 2008). However, to fully develop wellbeing from children’s perspective, it is important to find out how they interpret material well-being. In this dimension, in order to understand what children prioritize we first reversed the question and asked participants to “pick three characteristics of an unhappy child” and for the living conditions, we again asked the question of “pick three characteristics of a happy child” (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3
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Domain II: Selected material well-being ındicators (Set A), percentage of respondents, three responses

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We observed that two items were relatively more preferred by about 60 % of participants: The first is “being able to go on vacations or trips,” and the second is “wearing old clothes.” We can think that vacations/trips and clothes are simple indicators of symbolic capital in Bourdieu’s terms (Bourdieu 1986; Morrow 1999), or Adam Smith’s statement of “to appear in public without shame” (Sen 2010). More direct symbols of relative poverty such as “has to work after school,” “doesn’t get regular pocket money,” or “cannot buy everything he/she wants from the canteen” are relatively less selected items. Unable to participate in school trips is also picked only by 35 % of participants, with a significantly lower percentage (Table 2).

Table 2 Determinants for selecting material well-being indicators (Set A) (Exp(B) coefficients)
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Determinants for the preferences of participating children in the domain of material well-being are presented above. The most important difference is observed in the item of “having to work after school”, picked by 41 % of participants. The table above shows that this concern belongs to children from higher SES categories. In the first SES category, the propensity to pick this item among the three most important characteristics of a happy child is half of children from the third SES category. This ratio is 0.61 for a child from the second category. Moreover, as age increases, the propensity for selecting this item decreases. According to this table, working after school is related with the socioeconomic status of children.

A similar difference is observable for getting regular pocket money. Male participants tend to select this item 1.6 times more than female participants, meaning that pocket money is more important for boys. Meanwhile, there is a negative relation between socioeconomic status of a respondent and the propensity to pick this option. A child from the lowest SES category tends to select this option 1.86 times more than a child from the highest category.

Another indicator where socioeconomic status has a significant effect is buying everything he/she wants from the canteen. According to the above table there is no statistically significant difference between the lowest and highest SES categories, while this propensity is 1.6 times higher for a child from the medium SES level. For this item, there is a negative relation between age and propensity to select it.

According to the above table, age plays a stronger role in some items. For example, as age increases by one year, the propensity of picking “cannot enjoy vacations or trips” increases by 9 %. Similarly, being in charge of caring for his/her juniors is a negative factor for older participants. The marginal increase is 7 %.

Meanwhile, the same table shows that some items are relatively less important for older participants. Working after school and failing to buy everything he/she wants from the canteen are negatively affected by age. Older participants put less emphasis on these two items (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4
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Domain II: Selected Material Well-Being Indicators, (Living Conditions), Percentage of Respondents, Three Responses

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Material well-being indicators are also required within the context of the living conditions of the household, as characteristics of a happy child. As the above figure shows, the leading indicator is “having a room and table” (63 %), which may be a surprising finding because it is known that the average number of rooms of an ordinary household has increased over time and a recent survey showed that 40 % of households with children aged 0–17 have 3 rooms excluding kitchen, bathroom (TurkStat and Statistics on the Child 2013). This finding may be interpreted as a demand for further privacy or lack of even basic needs such as a desk.

Second, the most preferred item within this domain is “living in a house with adequate heating,” with a percentage of 56.2 %. The same survey showed that 60 % of households with children are using stoves for heating while central heating is only used by 35.1 %, and there are significant differences across regions, in the least developed cities the percentage of central heating drops to 13.5 % (Hakkari) from 65 % in Istanbul (TurkStat and Statistics on the Child 2013). It is not surprising that stoves are generally located in the living room, therefore they don’t provide adequate heating to other rooms, where children can set up their private areas in a comfortable way.

Third, the most selected item is “having a computer and internet connection” which is a clear indicator of the material well-being of the family. According to official statistics, 53.4 % of households have internet access and 61 % of children aged 6–15 years have regular access to computers (TurkStat, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Usage in Households and by Individuals http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/PreTablo.do?alt_id=1028, accessed on July 27th 2015).

Other items on living conditions are relatively less preferred by the participating children, such as “has a bed of his/her own,” “has a place to play in his/her neighborhood,” and “has good/trustworthy neighbors.” The above findings show that children put more emphasis on higher privacy, better heating in their own room, and access to information and communication technologies (Table 3).

Table 3 Determinants for selecting material well-being indicators (living conditions) (Exp(B) coefficients)
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In the facilities domain of material well-being, the socioeconomic status of participants plays a limited role in defining perceptions about happy children. The SES scores of participant children have a significant effect on only two indicators. First, children from the lowest SES category put less importance on having a computer and internet connection. For a child from this category, choosing this item as an indicator of a happy child is 36 % lower (1–0.64) than a child from the highest category. On the contrary, the above table shows that these children put 2 times more emphasis on having good/trustworthy neighbors compared to other children. The importance of neighbors for children from different SES categories needs to be further elaborated.

Gender has some visible effects in this dimension. The propensity of a boy to pick “having a room and a table in his/her house” is 0.44 times of a girl’s propensity to select that item. Similarly, “having a bed of his/her own” is also more important for girls. Meanwhile, the same table shows that having a place to play in his/her neighborhood is 2.7 times more important for boys and this ratio is 1.12 in the case of living in a not overcrowded house. These findings show that girls tend to put more importance to privacy, compared to boys; on the other hand, boys care more about their life out of their house.

Age also acts as a determinant. For younger children, a place to play in their neighborhood is more important than for older ones. Every one year reduces the propensity to select this option by 19 %. In the meantime, as age increases by one year, the propensity to pick “having a computer and internet connection” also increases by 7 %. As age increases, the demands of children shift (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5
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Domain II: Selected material well-being ındicators (Set B), percentage of respondents, three responses

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The third sub-domain of material conditions is highly focused on the opportunities provided by families such as “opportunities for realizing a hobby that he/she likes,” covering school expenses, being able to maintain the needs of the household and having regular jobs.

Our findings presented above show that children have different priorities in terms of material well-being. For example, 58.4 % of participant children picked “having opportunities for realizing a hobby that he/she likes.” This item is more preferred than the ability of the family to easily pay school expenses and the ability of parents to maintain the needs of the household, items more directly related with the material means of parents.

This situation may open the space for different explanations. As our sample is not representative, it tends to under-represent children with more difficult material conditions and since our participants don’t experience serious economic difficulties, such as having an unemployed father or being in debt that they cannot pay back, these are relatively distant threats for them. Consequently, satisfaction at the lower levels of the Maslowian hierarchy may be accounted for by a desire for self-actualization and hobbies. Furthermore, realizing a hobby is also a concrete indicator of the symbolic capital of any person in terms of Bourdieu (1986) and the previous research also underline the importance of ‘realizing hobby’ for children’s well-being (Fattore et al. 2007; Bradshaw (2011); Uusitalo-Malmivaara 2012). We therefore suggest that the relatively high prevalence of hobbies has to be taken into account in any future measurement of children’s well-being.

Meanwhile, the above figure also shows that none of the items listed are ignored by participating children and the lowest percentage is about 39 %, “families do not need to get help from others,” an indicator of the perception of dignity. Thus, it is clear that these indicators of material well-being are important in the eyes of children (Table 4).

Table 4 Determinants for selecting material well-being indicators (Set B) (Exp(B) coefficients)
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In terms of material opportunities provided by the family, the independent variables explain the limited number of variations among children. Gender matters on the issue of unemployment of parents. The above table shows that boys put less emphasis on this item, compared to girls with a coefficient of 0.65, whereas this issue is also relatively less important for older children (exp(B) coefficient = 0.91). The effect of socioeconomic status is visible as children from the lowest SES category put less emphasis on their families’ debt, by 38 % compared to other children, while as age increases the propensity of selecting this indicator increases by 8 %. This can also be explained by awareness about the family conditions.

In the focus groups, certain goods were stated, such as cell phones and computers, but also events such as school trips and celebrating or not celebrating birthdays were discussed. The hardship of not having enough money to go out with friends and, therefore, not being able to socialize was often stated by the vulnerable groups. Thus there is a need to study the findings in terms of what children of lower socio-economic status prioritize. However as McAuley and Layte (2012) show in their research family stressors may explain more the variance in the children’s happiness in families from the lower socioeconomic status.

Different statements on how they felt about “working in and outside home,” depending on the issue of gender, working conditions, and their families’ economic situations, are noteworthy. These items need to be further elaborated as they show why subjective and objective well-being should not be conceptualized separately, a point that will be discussed below in the discussion on the domain of Risk.

3.3 Educational Well-Being

In our research, education is measured in two different dimensions. The first one is based on subjective perceptions, including grade, school attendance, relations with teacher and participation in school activities; and the second one is on school attributes.

The above Fig. 6. shows that having high grades, picked by 74 % of participants, is the leading indicator of happiness in the education domain. It shows that the importance given to academic performance is also accepted by children as a component of well-being. Uusitalo-Malmivaara (2012), in her research with Finnish children asks the question, similar to our formulation, ‘what would make the students happier?’ and also finds that ‘success in school’ is among the most popular choices.

Fig. 6
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Domain III: Selected educational well-being ındicators, percentage of respondents, three responses

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The second most preferred item in our research is regular school attendance (53 %) closely followed by other items. An important finding is that about half of children have picked non-discriminatory behavior of teacher as a reason for happiness (47 %). Moreover, concerning teachers’ behavior, being patient or not, is also important, selected by 41 % of children. Relationships with teachers are important for children’s wellbeing for different reasons (Ripke et al. 2008:148) and having good relationships with teachers contribute child’s wellbeing (Goswami 2012). It seems that a more supportive teacher will significantly contribute to the well-being of children. Consequently, the importance of teachers is observable as a determinant of the well-being of children (Table 5).

Table 5 Determinants for selecting educational well-being indicators (Exp(B) coefficients)
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Our independent variables have limited effects on the expectations of children about the school environment. For example, there is no difference between girls and boys in terms of preferences. Socioeconomic status of the child has a visible effect on two different indicators. First, having high grades is relatively less important for children from the second SES category, compared to other children by 43 %. Secondly, children from the lowest SES category are much more sensitive to discrimination by the teacher in the classroom. These children’s propensities to pick this indicator as a characteristic of a happy child are 54 % higher than for other children. Socioeconomic status makes lower class children more sensitive to discrimination by the teacher; since they are the most visible targets for such discrimination.

Apart from socioeconomic status, age plays an important role as a determinant of expectation from school. Having high grades is an important indicator for almost every participant, independent of age. However as age increases, regular school attendance is not important (exp(B) = 0.84), similarly age has a negative effect on importance given to a patient teacher (exp(B) = 0.92). Meanwhile, older children give more importance to their autonomy: ability to go to a school of his/her preference (exp(B) = 1.14) and to take a role in any school club activity (exp(B) = 1.11) become more important as age increases. Any possible well-being indicator aiming to measure the well-being of children has to consider this importance given to autonomy by older children.

School attributes also play an important role in children’s everyday life, where they spend the majority of their time (Keung 2011). According to our findings, 55 % of participant children picked his/her school “has a clean and big garden” and “has areas in school that he/she can do sports” as indicators of a happy child. Spatial opportunities provided by schools are accepted as more important than class structure such as crowded classes or the effectiveness of classes. Another important finding is that children need guidance, about 45 % of participants picked this item among the most important indicators of a happy child (Fig. 7). We can say that social support in the school is as important as the physical infrastructure (Table 6).

Fig. 7
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Domain III: Selected educational well-being ındicators—school attributes, percentage of respondents, three responses

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Table 6 Determinants for selecting educational well-being indicators – school attributes (Exp(B) coefficients)
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The relationship between the importance given to school attributes and independent variables are presented above. The table shows a clear gender gap in the three leading indicators. Male participants put more importance on having a school with a clean, big garden (exp(B) = 1.43), areas where he can do sports (exp(B) = 2.13) while having a friendly counselor is not a priority for them (exp(B) = 0.59). This difference is mostly related to how boys and girls spend their time in class breaks. It seems that gender roles are already visible in school gardens and classrooms. Morioka et al. (2014) also states that among the factors affecting unhappiness at school in Japanese adolescents are associated with being male and not participating in extracurricular activities. The gender dimension of happiness in school is an interesting area to study further as what girls and boys prioritize are also reflection of how they are socialized and internalized the expected gender roles.

The socioeconomic status of the children also matters. Children from lower SES categories tend to select more having good heating at school (exp(B) = 1.62) and a nice guidance counselor (exp(B) = 1.52) as characteristics of a happy child. Poor children living in poorer neighborhoods attend schools with worse attributes. Hence, heating conditions are significantly worse in poorer neighborhoods. These children put less emphasis on having crowded classes and a clean and big garden in their schools compared to other children (exp(B) = 0.52 and exp(B) = 0.64); most probably as a result of their low expectations. They can feel the lack of a friendly guidance counselor or bad heating conditions; however, if they have no experience of a better school (with smaller class sizes and large gardens) they cannot make any comparison.

From this perspective, the importance given to the effectiveness of classes by children from the second SES category may be meaningful, since these children can compare their own situation with other possible alternatives.

The most important finding presented in the table above is about how age affects the expectations of children regarding school. According to this table, older and younger children are living in different worlds with different expectations. For example, as age increases by one year, propensities to pick “having good heating at school,” “having a clean and big garden,” and “having no course/lecture hour which teacher does not show up” decline by 15 to 9 %. On the contrary an extra year increase led to a 21 % increase in the propensity to pick “not having crowded classes” and the probability of picking “having a friendly guidance counselor” increases by 7 %. These findings show that as age increases physical attributes lose their importance for being happy in the eyes of the children.

In almost all of the focus groups, the attitudes and behaviors of teachers were also cited as reasons for happiness or unhappiness at school: discriminatory acts, shouting, beating, whether the teacher was patient or not, whether the teacher had the time and energy to make jokes were all given as examples of things the students liked or did not like. The children pointed out that the questionnaire did not ask about exams, which were a crucial part of their lives, or mention the recent changes in the education and exam systems.

3.4 Risk

All kind of problems, dangers, and obstacles that prevent the development of children can be defined as risk. Our study aimed to identify how children perceive these risks and which dimensions they emphasized more. The children were asked to select three that they thought would make a child unhappy (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8
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Domain IV: Selected risk ındicators, percentage of respondents, three responses

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According to participants, the most important threats towards the happiness of a child are people using drugs and violence in the house, both items are picked by 60 % of the participants. Smokers are also perceived as a source of threat by children with a percentage of 53 %. Meanwhile, the figure shows that having housework duties is not a threat for participants (Table 7).

Table 7 Determinants for selecting risk indicators – (Exp(B) coefficients)
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The gender of participating children affects their risk perceptions. For boys, smoking is much more important. The propensity of a boy to select this item as a factor making a child unhappy is 2.1 times higher than a girl’s propensity. On the other side, girls put more emphasis on violence in the house than boys. Violence in the house is also important for older participants: one year increase in age of participants leads to a 23 % increase in the probability of selecting this item. Meanwhile age has a negative effect on the way children perceive work. Younger participants selected this item more as a characteristic of an unhappy child. The threat of drug using adults is more relevant for children from the lowest SES category, with an exponential of B coefficient of 1.80, compared to other children. It may be a result of the closeness of the threat, since drug usage is visible in poorer neighborhoods, it is much more relevant for children living in these neighborhoods.

The previous research also show the use of drugs; tobacco and alcohol as factors that endanger children’s well-being (Fattore et al. 2009; Bradshaw 2011; Morioka et al. 2014); however, there are two related points that need to be clarified: first the risk difference between children’s own consumption and those closed ones’; and the related second point is of course whether the consumption by the child is a consequence of a failure of an objective and subjective well-being rather than an indicator.

In the focus groups, especially for socially excluded groups, “work” was noted as a threat to happiness by some of the children but they reported that they gained self-confidence by helping their family and, unlike in the case of their school experience, by being successful in their workplace. We believe this is an important point to study and also shows why subjective and objective well-being should not be conceptualized separately for the overall well-being of a child. Deprivation due to child work and labour (Das and Mukherjee 2011) endangers their wellbeing. The holistic approach of ‘well-being’-monitoring children’s capabilities both in subjective and objective terms is its crucial and vital contribution to any policy that prioritize children’s well-being.

3.5 Relationships

The last domain we analyzed is relationships: family and friends. As the literature on children’s subjective well-being underline the importance of emotional and social relationships (Ben-Arieh 2008), there is a rich literature which show that having good relationships with family and friends contribute children’s wellbeing (Haller and Hadler 2006; Fattore et al. 2007, 2009; Burton and Phipps 2010: 224; Bradshaw 2011; Goswami 2012; Kral et al. 2011; MacAuley et al. 2012).

The above Fig. 9. shows that the most important indicator of a happy child in this domain is the absence of domestic violence; 63 % of participants picked this item as an indicator of a happy child. Spending time with parents, having somebody in the family to talk to, and being respected in the family are three other leading indicators chosen by participating children. These findings show that being respected and having the support of his/her family are equally important as the lack of domestic violence (Table 8).

Fig. 9
figure 9

Domain V: Family relations based well-being ındicators, percentage of respondents, three responses

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Table 8 Determinants for selecting family relations based well-being indicators (Exp(B) coefficients)
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The above table shows that the most selected option, the absence of domestic violence, is almost a common denominator for all children, independent of age and socioeconomic status. Although boys tend to pick this indicator 27 % less than girls.

In the domain of relationships with family, three indicators are highly sensitive to the socioeconomic status of participants. First, there is a clear negative relation between socioeconomic status and propensity to pick “having somebody in the family who helps out with schoolwork” indicator. The propensity of a child from the lowest SES category to select this indicator as a characteristic of a happy child is almost twice that of a child from the third SES category. This ratio is 1.5 for a child from the second SES category, as the SES of the respondent increases, he/she tends to select it less. It seems that children from the lower SES categories tend to care about support in the family. Since we calculated the SES of respondents by also using parental education, children from lower SES categories have parents with lower education, consequently they cannot support their children in their schoolwork.

The second indicator in which socioeconomic status of children plays an important role is parental surveillance, formulated as “his/her parents know where he/she is at any time.” The propensity of picking this indicator as a characteristic of a happy child for a child from the lower SES categories is twice that of one from the highest SES category. It may be a result of the enduring conservatism of the family. It is known that conservatism is highly correlated with education and lower levels of parental education may indicate a more conservative family environment, echoed in the preferences of the children.

The third indicator of this domain in which socioeconomic status plays an important role is “having somebody in the family that he/she can share his/her problems with.” Children from the lower SES categories put less importance on this issue as an indicator of a happy child. The propensity of a child from lower SES categories is almost half that of a child from the highest category (exp(B) = 0.49 and exp(B) = 0.54, respectively). We observed that getting family support in education is relatively more important for children from lower SES categories, now the findings show that getting social support is more important for higher SES categories. Moreover, as age increases by one year, the propensity to pick this option also increases by 7 %, indicating how private life is more important for older children.

Our findings show that what children prioritize changes with respect to the SES categories. There is a need to explore family relations for different SES categories for children’s well-being. As the McAuley and Layte’s findings also show family stressors- conflictual parent–child relationship; children with emotional and social problems; parental depression; low parental self-efficacy and child isolation have more than twice influence than family’s socioeconomic circumstances (2012:541). The effect of socioeconomic circumstances for children’s wellbeing is clear but how those circumstances effect families and the relationship within the family are crucial for determining overall well-being of the child.

Children’s quest to be respected and loved is observable in the above figure which is also parallel to the findings of previous research (Fattore et al. 2007: 62–75). When participants are asked to pick three important items in this domain of friendship, 80 % of them picked “being loved by his/her friends,” showing that the importance given to this item is a common attribute of children. Spending a good time with friends (65 %) and having friends to share secrets with (59 %) are the two following items. It seems that being popular (“everybody wants to be friends with him/her”) is relatively less important than being loved or supported by friends (Fig. 10). It can be interpreted as an indicator of how children put importance on the quality of relationships/friendships than quantity (Table 9).

Fig. 10
figure 10

Domain V: Friendships based well-being ındicators, percentage of respondents, three responses

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Table 9 Determinants for selecting friendship based well-being indicators (Exp(B) coefficients)
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The most preferred indicator in the domain of friendships, “being loved by his/her friends” is almost a universal demand of children, independent of gender, socioeconomic status or age. Almost every child asks to be loved. Meanwhile, gender differentiates boys and girls about sharing secrets with friends. The propensity of a boy to pick this option as an indicator of a happy child is 29 % lower (1–0.71) than that of a girl; showing that private life is more important for girls. Similarly, as age increases, the propensity for selecting this option increases by 7 %, presenting another indicator of the importance of privacy for older children.

The age of respondent matters on another indicator. As age increases, children’s tendency to pick “getting along well with friends” decreases, showing that setting up comfortable relations is relatively less important for older children.

The above table shows that spending a good time with friends is a concern of children from upper SES categories. The probability of a child from the lowest SES picking this option is almost half that of a child from the highest category. This finding is important since it shows socioeconomic status may affect expectations from a good friendship.

Parallel to the findings from the adult and adolescent literature, social relationships are significant correlates and predictors of children’s happiness (Holder and Coleman 2009). As Thoilliez argued “the natural habitat of happiness is in human relationships” (2011: 346); family and friends are cited important indicators for happiness in the focus group discussions. Lack of attention from the family, especially parents, was stated as one of the main causes of unhappiness. Like health, if it is lacking, participant children mention this as the most important point. If loving and caring parents exist, then the issue of happiness was correlated with other issues. Children also stated that they could not realize their own choices as family pressure on the preferences of the children was common, an important issue brought up by the participants of the focus groups.

4 Conclusion

Our findings gave some clues about how children in Turkey think that a happy child would be: the one who feels fit and strong; who has positive mood; who can go to vacation and trips, and who does not wear old clothes; who has a room and a table in her/his house; has high grades in the school which has a clean and big garden where s/he can do sports; lives in a family with no risk of drugs, fighting and violence; realizes a hobby that s/he likes; spends time with her/his family and her/his friends; and is loved by her/his friends. Thus what causes an imaginary child to be happy or unhappy for children with respect to age, gender and socio-economic background are also important to think and further elaborate on as this provides important tools for understanding the hidden stories for children’s well-being.

Gender has some visible effects in different domains. Having a place to play in his/her neighborhood is more important for boys whereas girls give more importance to having a room, bed and a table of their own, as an indicator of importance given to the private life. Male participants put more importance on having a school with a clean, big garden, areas where he can do sports while having a friendly counselor is girls’ priority. The propensity of a boy to select smoking as a factor making a child unhappy is higher than a girl’s propensity. Girls however think violence in the house is a more important factor that makes a child unhappy.

Violence in the house is also important for older participants. Working after school and failing to buy everything he/she wants from the canteen are negatively affected by age. ‘Having a positive mood” is generally selected by older children. Age has a negative effect on importance given to a patient teacher and regular attendance to school. Older children give more importance to their autonomy: ability to go to a school of his/her preference and to take a role in any school club activity. Findings also show that as age increases physical attributes of school lose their importance for being happy in the eyes of the children. As age increases, children’s tendency to pick “getting along well with friends” also decreases.

For children from a lower SES, being clean and having three meals per day and getting regular pocket money are more important. They put more emphasis on having good/trustworthy neighbors compared to other children. They are much more sensitive to discrimination by the teacher in the classroom and tend to select more having good heating at school and a nice guidance counselor as characteristics of a happy child. Children of lower SES also prioritize family support for school more.

Those findings of our research are presented with the hope of contributing child well-being research in Turkey and abroad; by incorporating children’s perspective to the measurement of the well-being. In Turkey, UNICEF Turkey organized a workshop with the participation of different stakeholders from the government, the bureaucracy, academia and civil society organizations. In this workshop, we discussed how to develop indicators to measure the Child Well-Being to include perspectives of children as presented above. These experts classified above discussed indicators on the basis of ratios of preference, average importance and variation across categories of age, gender and socioeconomic status. Those are fulfilling one of these criteria are selected as the leading indicators. In the second stage, alternative ways of measuring them are discussed, through different data collection methods such as interviews with children, parents or neighborhood/city or province level macro statistics. Moreover, the experts also discussed the availability of these leading indicators from the official statistics providers. Output of these discussions are included into the final report as the recommendations to policy makers and the government.

At this point, we need to underline some limitations of our study. First of all, our study doesn’t have a target to represent all children living in Turkey, and its representativeness is almost limited with participants. Given the experimental nature of the study, this limitation may be tolerated. However, it is clear that there is a need for a representative survey, perhaps with a limited scope. Secondly, our findings are limited with Turkey. To conduct comparative studies to see whether the findings of the Turkish case can be generalizable is necessary.

Finally, it is known that the level of literacy and academic success influenced the way the children reacted to the questionnaire. This was not something particular to our study. Whenever one asks children to fill out forms, those who are academically successful do it happily and carefully. The second point that needs to be stated on this point was the danger for the children to consider the survey as yet another type of exam. We repeated in every focus group that there was no right or wrong answer, but still there were some cases in which some children wanted to finish first or, though rarely, tried to look at a friend’s answers. Focus group discussions and our personal observations reduced our concerns about the validity of our instruments. However, some further tests need to be conducted and a specific measurement for social desirability for children should be developed.

With the belief that the power of the well-being approach lies with its inclusion of both subjective and objective criteria, we propose to reconsider each domain through the perspective of what children prioritize and add. However, one needs to be careful about how to use the findings. As the discussions in the risk domain show, child labor may not be considered as a threat to child’s well-being from the children’s perspective depending on school experience, socioeconomic status of family and age; however, this should never lead to an outcome in which child labor is tolerable. Particularly in a country such as Turkey, where the worst forms of child labor are still observable, endangering not only well-being but even the “being” of children,Footnote 8 one has to be very careful how to include subjective perception into the picture. However the way we, the adults, see children changing from objects to subjects (Fattore et al. 2009), from future citizens to current citizens (Lister 2008), is not only necessary for reconsidering our research practices but more so for changing everyday acts, practices (Thoilliez 2011: 36) and current structures. The different indicators in each domain are important for measuring in order to understand and therefore to develop policies and practices which will improve the lives of children.

We also want to underline that in each domain those items that children state as crucial for happiness are not necessarily those that they define as reasons for unhappiness. This is particularly observable for health. This domain in fact shows how when health is missing, it endangers well-being substantially, but how its existence does not guarantee happiness. Similar to this, lack of attention from the family, especially parents, was also stated as one of the main causes of unhappiness in the focus group discussions. Like health, if it is lacking, participant children identified this missing attention of family as the most important point but when parents are there, other points such as friends or school success are important for happiness.

It is hard to claim to have a right to be ‘happy’ (Haybron 2008:22) as it is not a matter of justice and as it is too indeterminate a goal to be pursued directly (Ryan 2010: 439). Like loss of a loved one, there are those ‘things’ which cannot be controlled though they create the highest level of ‘unhappiness’ in terms of emotions. However there are those ‘things’ which are related to certain material conditions which also may prevent a good relationship to develop in family; in school; in neighbourhood both objective and subjective terms. We therefore try to understand how children evaluate objective wellbeing indicators in each domain which may shed light to policies to improve the living conditions of children. What children state as the characteristics of a/n un/happy child give clues what their needs are and relativity of those needs with respect to age, gender and SES. The try of involving children in child wellbeing literature should make a clear contribution to policies which are aimed at developing better conditions in the lives of children. To avoid “unhappiness,” not in terms of emotions but in terms of life satisfaction (Helliwell et al. 2014) and needs is as a necessary but insufficient condition for happiness, may provide a guideline within the perspective of capabilities and wellbeing.