Quick. What do you want for your children?
Do you want them to be successful?
Do you want them to be famous?
Do you want them to be beautiful?
You might want all of the above, but in reality, what most parents want for their children comes down to one word: happiness. Success, fame, and beauty pale in comparison to happiness. But, how do you instill happiness? It’s easy to understand how to make your child be something, but how can you help your child feel something? According to groundbreaking psychologist Mikaly Csikszentmihalyi, “Happiness is not something that happens to people but something that they make happen.” How can you make that happen? Or, rather, can you help your children make their own happiness happen?
Before we get into the details of how to help your children learn how to create their own happiness, I want to quote Dr. Edward Hallowell from his new book The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness.
“There is a point that many parenting books miss: children do more for us than we do for them. The most important advice in any parenting book ought to be this: Enjoy your children. Learn from them; listen to what they have to say, play with them when you can, let them activate those parts of you that had already started to go dead before they were born, and let those parts of you energize your work, your friendships, your spiritual life, every part of your life that there is.”
“What?!” you might scream, “you say my children do more for me than I do for them? My children do nothing! I do everything. They eat and make clothes dirty… I cook and wash dirty clothes and pay for the electricity… How can you possibly say that they do more for me than I do for them?!”
But after you’ve finished blowing off steam, and after your children have gone to bed or grown up and moved away, you know I am right… For all that we provide for them, look what our children give us: Hope. Love. Energy. Purpose. Laughter. Sweet sorrow. Meaning. A chance to be a hero. A chance to love as we never knew we could. A chance to worry more about someone else than about ourselves. A chance to make a life.
How can we become heroic parents? By helping our children learn how to create happiness in their own lives. Dr. Hallowell makes the following suggestions:
Connections. The sense of being rooted, both physically and emotionally, is confidence building and uplifting for children. Children need to experience unconditional love from their parents; luckily, for most, this part is easy. In addition, feeling part of a community, being a member of a school, and helping younger siblings can be beneficial. All of these elements make children feel that they are part of something larger and give them a foundation of security.
Play. Your children need to feel like children when they play. Instead of programming their play at all times and scheduling multiple activities, your children should be able to engage in open-ended play. Encourage them to use their imagination and invent scenarios. This will force them to solve problems by themselves. When they solve problems together or with their friends or siblings, they discover their own talents and resources. This builds confidence and self-esteem.
Practice. Sometimes your children are going to fail. Dr. Wendy Mogel, in her book, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teaching to Raise Self-Reliant Children,writes about the importance of fear and failure in parenting:
“The parental urge to overprotect their children is based on fear – fear of strangers, the street. Fear of the child’s not being invited to the right parties or accepted by the right schools… Real protection means teaching children to manage risks on their own, not shielding them from every hazard… Children need an opportunity to learn about the “wave-pattern” of emotions. If parents rush in to rescue them from distress, children don’t get an opportunity to learn that they can suffer and recover on their own.”
Children who fail should be encouraged to practice and improve. Therefore, encourage your children to stick to something even if it is difficult; doing so will help build resilience. Their success in the long-term will also give them a sense of accomplishment.
Mastery. Once your children finds a strength, help them master that skill. This mastery can be related to flying kites, hitting a baseball, or tying their shoes. This allows them to feel like they can take on anything, no matter how difficult.
Recognition. When you, your children’s teachers or friends let them know that they did a good job, they understand once again that they are part of something that is larger than they are. This links back to step #1 (connections), in which they feel secure and connected to a larger community. When children feel that their actions affect their family, classmates, and the wider community, they are more likely to act morally in the future. This in turn will make them feel good about themselves.
The good news: each step naturally leads into the next. Start out loving your children unconditionally and help them figure out how to play. The rest will come. So, as Dr. Hallowell would suggest, go out and play. You won’t regret it.