Raising Happy Kids in Hard Times: Habits That Build Key Skills for Good Health

Sometimes happiness can seem simple—to us and to our children. The stresses of everyday life, getting out the door in the morning, managing the home, planning schedules, and big issues, including worrying about world problems, can all take their toll on us as adults. Given the growing number of children’s mental health issues, we know that they also affect our children.

However, in the midst of hardship, joy can still be found and is essential to well-being and resilience. Research on the well-being of older adults shows that there are certain steps we can take to improve and increase happiness.

As James Baraz writes, happiness is “a general feeling of well-being and well-being characterized by experiencing difficult and true moments in life with integrity and perspective.”

Based on our work with children, we know this is true for them as well. It can be as simple as enjoying a hug, being surprised by a ladybug, or giggling at the shape of a cloud. These simple pleasures can be small moments of joy for our children and for us—and they can be part of raising happy children who are resilient, even in the midst of normal ups and downs.

Not Denying the Difficulty, But Opening the Possible

When we talk about raising happy children, we are not talking about “happiness” as a fleeting emotion that is a response to good or happy things. We do not propose to put difficulties aside, but rather develop the ability to hold them close to our well-being. As James Baraz writes in The Joy of Resurrection, happiness is “a general feeling of well-being and well-being characterized by experiencing difficult and true moments in life with integrity and perspective.”

We envision a happy child as someone who has a growing sense of independence, who often sees and enjoys the good around him and within him.

Happiness is not a place or something to be achieved, but rather what Chang Meng Tan, author of Search Within Youit describes it as “a deep sense of prosperity that comes from a healthy mind.”

We envision a happy child as someone who has a growing sense of independence, who often sees and enjoys the good around him and within him.

Research by the Center for Healthy Minds shows that well-being is a learnable skill. There are many evidence-based theories that offer practical ideas for cultivating happiness.

As for, The Resilience Project by Hugh Van Cuylenburg focuses on gratitude, compassion and mindfulness to support resilience and happiness. The Joyful Action Project has a similar focus and lists mindfulness, gratitude, and kindness as important skills. In Hardwiring HappinessRick Hanson adds to this list and emphasizes the importance of mindfulness, or mindfulness, to find happiness and bring it in.

Raising Happy Children Starts with Building the Skills to Live Together

Here are three fun activities based on these patterns that you can try with your child.

Reversing the Mind and Taking it into Practice: The Glimmer Wand

Glimmers, coined by Deb Dana, are small moments of peace, safety, and joy.

Cut out, decorate and glue the star onto a popsicle or other stick. You can write “catch glimmers” in the star. Share about the glimmers and use the wand to “throw the temptation” to notice and enjoy the glimmers that day. You can also wave it up as people share their glimmers and how they make them feel.

The mind has a negativity bias. By pausing for light, we can train our brains to notice and experience joy more often.

Gratitude Pratitude: Gratitude Sandwich

Children can draw and cut out pictures of five things or people they appreciate as sandwich fillings.

• Cut two pieces of sandwich bread paper.
• Glue one piece of “bread” to the top and one to the bottom of the poster.
• Stick the filling in the middle of the bread (or Velcro for a change).
• Write a Gratitude Sandwich and “Thank you for…” “on the bread.”
• Leave the sandwich somewhere visible and use it as a conversation starter about gratitude.

Dr. Robert Emmons at UC Davis discovered that feeling grateful can turn our nervous system off in response to stress. Giving children a visual link to things that encourage feelings of gratitude can help strengthen the body-brain connection and develop positive emotional pathways.

Cultivating happiness can be easy if we focus on it, even when things are difficult. Pausing to see and take in the good, feeling gratitude, and connecting with others with compassion and kindness in the small moments of our day can make a real difference.

Communication Practice: Links of Love

Ask the child to think of five people who make them feel loved or happy.

• Thread the individual beads into the pipe cleaner.
• Pin the ends together so the beads don’t fall apart. These are links of love.
• Let them touch one bead at a time and remember someone special.
• Take a breath, let in their love, let out, give love back to them.
• Encourage them to be aware of how they feel. Love links can be attached to a backpack, worn on the wrist, or left in plain sight.

Especially when a child is feeling lonely or insecure, having a physical anchor can remind them that they are worthy and loved.

A Closer Look at Happiness

Cultivating happiness can be easy if we focus on it, even when things are difficult. Pausing to see and take in the good, feeling gratitude, and connecting with others with compassion and kindness in the small moments of our day can make a real difference.

Fun, hands-on activities, like the ones above, can help both adults and children lean into happiness and create space for more joy in our lives.

Would you like more support in building habits of well-being and fitness in your child? Try our new deck of cards, available April 21st. Let’s increase Happiness includes 50 activity cards to help children build gratitude, empathy, and emotion regulation skills.