Helping Children Become Happier

If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.
- Chinese Proverb

Our world feels very unhappy now, for many. But the good news is that you and your children get the choice on how you think and feel. Put differently, the idea of helping children become happier is important. It’s not static, like the word happiness, but more dynamic. Becoming happier means better than before. It doesn’t mean rainbows and unicorns, but simply making an improvement in mood and feeling more positive.

3 Ways to Boost Children’s Happier Feelings

Science shows us there is an exact way to become happier. Of course, the specifics are different for everyone, but the methods are similar. This is good news. And one of the reasons I wrote: The Happiness Workbook for Kids (PESI), so children can help themselves think or do something differently, which can move them toward their own resilient, and ultimately happier life experiences. Here are 3 ways how:

1. Show Appreciation. Gratitude is the feeling of thankfulness. It is when you miss stepping in a puddle, and think, “Thank Goodness.” To practice gratitude, you and your children can name “3 good things” from the day each night. Of course, some days are easier than others, but children need to practice the attitude of gratitude. Appreciation is the next step. It is the thought and feeling of demonstrating or showing gratitude. So, you write your teacher a thank you note, or you bake cookies for your grandparents to say, “I love you. And thank you!” Appreciation is gratitude in action.
2. Help Others. Shifting the focus from ourselves (me, me, me) to helping others (we, we, we) can immediately help us, and our children, become happier. Coming up with something creative your son or daughter wants to do to help someone (furry friends count too) is good practice to boost feel-good feelings. For example, you might raise money for refugees through hosting a lemonade stand, or volunteer walking dogs at your local animal shelter. Or they might help a friend who needs extra tutoring in a subject, or learning how to level up in a video game (yes, this counts, too). Science shows that helping others significantly boosts mood (Titova & Sheldon, 2021).
3. Reframe Challenges. We all have days that are lemons, there are no two ways around it. But oftentimes we can make lemonade out of lemons by learning something new, working to develop an inner quality (grit, patience, forgiveness, perseverance), or learning how we can utilize a challenge as a stepping-stone to something better (thus feeling more hopeful, and a wee bit happier). Children, like adults, often feel stuck in situations, but helping them get unstuck in their thinking and actions is essential. First, acknowledge the challenge, empathize with it, and then help them see it differently.

One creative tool I’ve used with older children is to draw a box: Put the challenge (start small) in the middle, and ask them to write possible good things that can come from this challenge on the other four sides of the box. You’ll want to start with something minor, like losing your favorite hat, versus climate change, but it can begin to loosen the rigidity in their thinking and move them in a more constructive direction (Healy, and Harvard University). Of course, they may need your help, but it can help them develop flexibility in their thinking, which is essential to resilience and ultimately, becoming healthier and happier.

Choosing happier thoughts is not for the weak or wimpy. It takes a lot of courage and discipline to look for the good when life (and this world) feels like it’s falling apart. But with practice and effort, your children can form the habits in their thoughts and actions that consistently move them toward feeling better than before.