Christine Carter - Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents

Introduction:
The Art and Science of Raising Happy Kids

The most important work you and I will ever do will be within the walls of our own homes.

H AROLD B. L EE

ecently I was an observer at a sold-out parent education seminar about the epidemic levels of depression, suicide, and anxiety disorders affecting children. The lecturer asked the audience rhetorically, What is it that we most want our children to be? In stunning synchronicity, the audience roared, Happy.

Of course.

We parents want our children to grow into happy adultsbut the trouble is, sometimes we feel as though our childrens personalities are already more or less set in genetic stone: Timmy is my sunny optimist, Ben is my Eeyore, and looktheyve been raised in the same house. Clearly I have no control! a friend recently exclaimed. The good news is that we actually do have a lot of influence: parenting practices have a tremendous effect on childrens emotional outlook on life. Personality is not predetermined at birth, and neither is happiness. Nearly halfmaybe moreof the factors that determine childrens happiness can be attributed to the environments in which they are raised. That isnt to say that genetic makeup doesnt play a role; it does. But it is biologically impossible for a gene to operate independently of its environment, explains Daniel Goleman, an expert on social and emotional intelligence. Genes are designed to be regulated by signals from their immediate surroundings. These signals include, of course, what we do as parents.

So there is a lot that we can do to ensure our childrens happinessand our own at the same time. In fact, there is a perpetual buy one, get one free special: teach your kids the skills they need to be happy, and youll become happier yourself in the process.

What does it mean to have a happy childhood? Happiness, as I conceptualize it, is much more than a mood or a cheerful disposition. Rather, a happy life is one that is full of lots of different types of positive emotions. For example, positive emotions about the past, such as gratitude, forgiveness, and appreciation, are important components of a happy life, as are future-based positive emotions such as optimism, faith, and confidence. The field of sociology has long shown us that people find happiness through their connections to other people. Positive emotions such as love, kindness, and empathy help us make those connections. And present-based positive emotions such as joy and contentment are obvious ingredients in a happy childhood.

Kids become accustomed to different ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving based in large part on what we teach them about the world, their relationships, and our expectations. These habits profoundly influence how happy they are. Thats what this book is all about: how to foster the skills, habits, and mind-sets that will set the stage for a wide range of positive emotions in childhood and beyond.

Everything in this book draws on scientific research related to happiness. Much of this research comes from the new field of positive psychology. Social scientists used to focus solely on why people and society fall short: what makes depressed people so sad, what constitutes autism, why some cultures are racist and others harbor violent class conflict. Generally speaking, the aim of traditional social science is to understand dysfunction and relieve suffering. But in the last few years, social scientists across disciplines have turned their attention to the reverse: what makes happy people happy, functional families functional? Instead of trying to get something negative back to neutralto get a depressed person functioning, perhapsthis science is about how parents and children can be happier, no matter where we are starting from.

As a sociologist and the executive director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, Ive made it my business to make the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of raising happy children approachable to real people. That said, this book is also about me and my family. I have two daughters: Molly, age six, and Fiona, age eight. Im not married to their father, Mike, anymore, but he and I work hard at being a great co-parenting team. My parents (the kids call them Nonie and Dadu) are part of our daily lives. So this book represents the intersection of my brain and my heart: my intellectual training in the social sciences and my very real, sometimes raw, experiences as a mother struggling daily to put the science into practice.

Happiness is a continuous creative activity.

B ABA A MTE

This is not a book targeted to children of a specific age, because children and adults of all ages benefit from practices that are scientifically proven to contribute to human happiness. Raising Happiness is about setting up your children to thrive. And you dont have to be a parent to read this book. Think of all the people who care about kids: teachers, grandparents, health-care providers, aunts and uncles, librarians, babysitters the list goes on and on. Some of them spend a lot of time with our children each day. These people also contribute a lot to our kids happiness skills. This is a book for all of us to read during pregnancy and keep handy through our kids adolescence.

Why? According to a series of studies commissioned by The Lucile Packard Foundation for Childrens Health, only about half of parents rate their childrens overall emotional and behavioral health as excellent, and 67 percent worry that their teens are too stressed. But according to the same studies, the well-being of children is more important to adults than just about anything elsehealth care, the well-being of seniors, the cost of living, terrorism, and the war in Iraq. More than two-thirds of adults say they are extremely concerned about the well-being of children, and this concern cuts across gender, income, ethnicity, age, and political affiliation.

We have reason to be concerned: nearly a third of high school students have reported feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for two or more weeks in a row. Persistent sadness and hopelessness are predictors of clinical depression, and depression in youth is linked to anxiety disorders, suicidal behavior, obesity, and deficits in social functioning. Depressed youth are also much more likely to use drugs or alcohol, drop out of school, and engage in promiscuous sexual activities.

The good news is that happiness is a skill that we can teach our children. The new science of positive emotions shows that this seemingly crazy idea is, in fact, true. What we say and do with our children is far more important in determining their success and happiness than any God-given talent or innate disposition. For example: