7 Secrets to Raising a Happy Child
Here are 7 secrets to raising a happy child. Give your child the skills to rebound from setbacks and pave the way to success.
By Marguerite Lamb from American Baby
What Makes a Child Happy?
We all share common aspirations for our kids. We want them to grow up, love and be loved, pursue their dreams, and achieve success. Above all, our primary desire is for them to be happy. However, the question arises: how much influence do we truly exert over our children’s happiness? My 7-year-old son, Jake, has been consistently somber since birth, in contrast to my 5-year-old, Sophie, who is perpetually sunny. Jake starts his day grumpy and has always been that way, while Sophie greets every day with a smile.
Their temperaments, evident from infancy, are, to some extent, influenced by their genes. Nonetheless, Bob Murray, PhD, author of “Raising an Optimistic Child: A Proven Plan for Depression-Proofing Young Children — for Life” (McGraw-Hill), assures us that their ultimate happiness is not predetermined. According to him, there may be a genetic propensity for depression, but genes are malleable and can be activated or deactivated based on the environment. He emphasizes that research clearly indicates happy, optimistic children result from happy, optimistic homes, irrespective of genetic makeup.
So, what actions can you take to create a home where your child’s happiness can actively flourish? Read on for seven strategies that will enhance your child’s ability to experience joy.
Foster Connections
Actively ensuring your child feels connected, not just to you but also to other family members, friends, neighbors, daycare providers, and even pets, is the most effective way to foster their lifelong emotional well-being. Edward Hallowell, MD, a child psychiatrist and author of “The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness” (Ballantine Books), asserts that a connected childhood is the key to happiness. Supporting this claim with evidence from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, involving approximately 90,000 teens, Dr. Hallowell highlights that the researchers actively identified “connectedness” — the feeling of being loved, understood, wanted, and acknowledged — as the most significant protector against emotional distress, suicidal thoughts, and risky behaviors such as smoking, drinking, and drug use.
The encouraging news is that we can actively solidify our child’s primary and most crucial connection — with us — by simply providing what Dr. Hallowell describes as the unwavering, “crazy love” that never quits. Dr. Hallowell acknowledges that it might sound hokey and is often dismissed as a given, but he actively emphasizes its importance.
Having just one person who loves a child unconditionally, he says, is the closest thing they’ll ever get to an inoculation against misery. However, it’s not sufficient to merely possess that deep love; your child must actively feel it. Dr. Hallowell advises holding your baby as much as possible, responding empathetically to their cries, reading aloud to them, and engaging in activities like eating, snuggling, and laughing together.
“Fun is Our Middle Name”
Meanwhile, provide chances for him to form loving connections with others as well, advises sociologist Christine Carter, PhD, executive director of the University of California at Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, an organization devoted to the scientific understanding of happiness. “We know from 50 years of research that social connections are an incredibly important, if not the most important, contributor to happiness,” Carter says. “And it’s not just the quality, but also the quantity of the bonds: the more connections your child makes, the better.”
Don’t Try to Make Your Child Happy
It sounds counterintuitive, but the best thing you can do for your child’s long-term happiness may be to stop trying to keep her happy in the short-term. “If we put our kids in a bubble and grant them their every wish and desire, that is what they grow to expect, but the real world doesn’t work that way,” says Bonnie Harris, founder of Core Parenting, in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and author of When Your Kids Push Your Buttons: And What You Can Do About It (Grand Central Publishing).
To keep from overcoddling, recognize that you are not responsible for your child’s happiness, Harris urges. Parents who feel responsible for their kids’ emotions have great difficulty allowing them to experience anger, sadness, or frustration. We swoop in immediately to give them whatever we think will bring a smile or to solve whatever is causing them distress. Unfortunately, Harris warns, children who never learn to deal with negative emotions are in danger of being crushed by them as adolescents and adults.
Once you accept that you can’t make your child feel happiness (or any other emotion for that matter), you’ll be less inclined to try to “fix” her feelings — and more likely to step back and allow her to develop the coping skills and resilience she’ll need to bounce back from life’s inevitable setbacks.
Nurture Your Happiness
While we can’t control our children’s happiness, we are responsible for our own. And because children absorb everything from us, our moods matter. Happy parents are likely to have happy kids, while children of depressed parents suffer twice the average rate of depression, Murray observes. Consequently, one of the best things you can do for your child’s emotional well-being is to attend to yours: carve out time for rest, relaxation, and, perhaps most important, romance. Nurture your relationship with your spouse. “If parents have a really good, committed relationship,” Murray says, “the child’s happiness often naturally follows.”
Praise the Right Stuff
Not surprisingly, studies consistently link self-esteem and happiness. Our children can’t have one without the other. It’s something we know intuitively, and it turns many of us into overzealous cheerleaders. Our child scribbles and we declare him a Picasso, scores a goal and he’s the next Beckham, adds 1 and 2 and he’s ready for Mensa. But this sort of “achievement praise” can backfire.
Murray highlights the peril of exclusively showering a child with this kind of praise, voicing concern that it might instill the belief that securing parental approval requires constant achievement. The looming fear is that failure might trigger a fall from the pedestal, causing the child to worry about their parents withdrawing love without success. Furthermore, praising specific traits such as intelligence, prettiness, or athleticism has the potential to actively erode children’s confidence over time. If they come to believe that their value hinges on something beyond their control and possibly fleeting, like physical attractiveness, it actively undermines their confidence in the long run.
Fun is Our Middle Name
Murray raises a thought-provoking question: What happens when your child, once praised primarily for being pretty, grows old and loses that beauty? He questions the impact of such praise, asking how many facials it would take for her to feel worthwhile. Adding an interesting perspective, Murray points out that research indicates children praised mainly for being bright may become intellectually timid, fearing that failure will diminish their perceived intelligence and value.
However, Murray suggests an antidote that doesn’t involve withholding praise but rather redirecting it. His advice is to praise the effort over the result. Specifically, he encourages praising the creativity, hard work, and persistence that contribute to achievement, placing more emphasis on the process than the accomplishment itself.
Carter agrees with this approach, emphasizing the goal of nurturing a “growth mind-set” in children. This mind-set revolves around the belief that success is achieved through hard work and practice rather than innate talent. Carter notes that kids labeled as having innate talent often feel the need to continually prove themselves, while studies indicate that those with a growth mind-set perform better and enjoy their activities more, as they are less concerned about others’ opinions in case of failure.
Carter is optimistic, mentioning research demonstrating the possibility of instilling a growth mind-set in children with a simple line of praise: acknowledging their success on a task and attributing it to hard work. She emphasizes the importance of praise but
Allow for Success and Failure
If you really want to bolster your child’s self-esteem, focus less on compliments and more on providing ample opportunities to learn new skills. Mastery, not praise, is the real self-esteem builder, Dr. Hallowell says. Fortunately, for the under-4 crowd, every activity is an opportunity for mastery, from learning to crawl, walk, and feed themselves to using the potty and riding a tricycle.. Our challenge is to stand back and let our children do for themselves what they’re capable of. “The great mistake good parents make is doing too much for their children,” Dr. Hallowell says.
While it can be difficult to watch our kids struggle, they’ll never know the thrill of mastery unless we allow them to risk failure. Few skills are perfected on a first try. It’s through practice that children achieve mastery. It is through repeated experiences of mastery. They develop the can-do attitude that lets them approach future challenges with the zest and optimism that are central to a happy life.
Give Real Responsibilities
Murray observes that happiness hinges on the belief that our actions matter and are valued by others. Without this sense, we fear exclusion from the group. And research shows that what human beings fear more than anything is exclusion.”
In other words, people have an innate need to be needed. Encourage your child’s sense of self-worth and happiness by emphasizing their unique contribution to the family from an early age. Children as young as 3 can have meaningful family roles, like refilling the cat’s bowl or setting out napkins at dinner. If possible, assign a role that plays to your child’s strengths. For example, if your little one loves to organize things, give him the job of sorting the forks and spoons. If he’s particularly nurturing, perhaps his role could be entertaining his baby sister while you get dinner on the table. Acknowledge that he’s making a contribution to the family. It will heighten your child’s sense of connection and confidence, two prerequisites for lasting happiness.
Practice Habitual Gratitude
Finally, happiness studies consistently link feelings of gratitude to emotional well-being. Research at the University of California, Davis, and elsewhere has shown that people who keep gratitude journals feel more optimistic. They make more progress toward goals, and feel better about their lives overall. For a child, keeping a journal may be unrealistic. One way to foster gratitude in children is to ask family members to name aloud something they are thankful for. The important thing is to make it a regular ritual. “This is one habit can foster positive emotions,” she assures, “and it really can lead to lasting happiness.”
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