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Parental Happiness

In this Q&A, Allison Gilbert, Senior Writer for the Center for Parent and Teen Communication, has a wide-ranging conversation with KJ Dell’Antonia, author of How to Be a Happier Parent: Raising a Family, Having a Life, and Loving (Almost) Every Minute. For five years, Dell’Antonia wrote and edited The New York Times’ popular parenting blog, the Motherlode, and after that, she became a contributing editor to Well Family. Dell’Antonia lives in New Hampshire with her husband and four children, ages 12-17. We’re thrilled she joined us for this meaningful discussion, and we’re excited to share her strategies for bringing more joy into our daily lives as parents.

We love our kids, but let's face it: parenting is harder than you ever thought it would be. It is funny to watch. Parents move their bodies as if they can help their kids move the ball straight into the basket or the goal. Well, the truth is that parents can help a lot in directing their kids, but the playing filed is the last place to do that. Participating in any kind of sport is very important for every child (and parent).

Allison Gilbert: In the beginning of your book, you reveal “Ten mantras for happier parents.” The first one, “What you want now isn’t always what you want later,” reflects one of our core messages here at the Center for Parent and Teen Communication: Raise teens as the 35, 40, 50-year olds you hope they become. Can you explain what you mean by your first mantra?

KJ Dell’Antonia: Parental happiness almost never comes from immediate gratification. Meaning, what you want now may be for your teen to just pick the towel off the bathroom floor, but what you want later is a child who knows you can’t leave a wet towel on the bathroom floor, or who is helpful, or who understands he or she needs to contribute to the workings of the household.

What I have found is that parental happiness comes from a sense of efficacy, a sense that you’re pretty good at this thing called raising children. And that’s why happiness doesn’t come from letting your child off from doing chores, even though in the moment it will make your life easier just to do them yourself. We know that’s not right. We know something’s out of whack.

AG: You actually devote an entire chapter explaining that jobs around the house aren’t “chores,” they’re “life skills.” Is that just semantics? How do these life skills actually build character in the longer term?

KJD: Children shouldn’t feel that fairies come and do the dishes. That won’t go over well when they’re in college and have roommates. You don’t want to raise somebody who can sit and watch other people work. That’s not a skill that’s going to get them very far. In essence, you’re protecting their still-to-come adult relationships. And you’re giving them a sense they’re part of something bigger than themselves, giving them a sense of meaning and mattering.

AG: Many people view adolescence as a time of turbulence and stress. But, you seem to hold your children to high expectations, and approach parenting as a time of opportunity and yes…fun! How does this mindset impact your own happiness and your relationship with your children?

KJD: Mindset is huge. You can make anything into a burden, a chore, or a job. This doesn’t have to be the case. One of the ways I embrace happiness is with one of my other mantras, “You don’t have to go in there.” This mantra is life-changing. It’s my way of reminding myself that I don’t have to mirror my family’s every mood.

AG: A primary argument in your book is the importance of seeing the big picture – letting your son forget his homework, allowing your daughter to submit an essay with typos. Why shouldn’t parents make it their mission to ensure their children succeed whenever possible? What’s the value in letting children make mistakes?

KJD: I often ask parents what stories they tell about their childhoods. Parents generally want to talk about the times they triumphed, the times things were hard and they made them OK. You don’t want to raise a child who has never been unhappy, or who has never faced challenge that a parent hasn’t smoothed over. You want your children to be happy, but you also want them to learn and grow and change and evolve and become adults. If children are allowed to fail (and recover) they begin thinking of themselves as people who can. We want our children to have grit and they gain that sense of grit when they make things go right when things have been going wrong.

AG: In Chapter 7, you interview Dr. Ken Ginsburg, founder and director of programs here at the Center for Parent and Teen Communication, about discipline. What is effective discipline and how does it shape a teen’s growth?

KJD: Discipline isn’t just that one moment when we lay down a punishment or enforce a rule. Discipline is actually all the teaching that goes into that moment – all the teaching you’ve ever done about what would be the right thing to do — all the living, all the demonstrating, all the modeling of appropriate behavior over time.

When your child needs to be corrected, though, talking about how he or she could have made better choices will contribute to their long-term growth. This approach also makes it more likely that you’ll become someone your child wants to talk to.

However, I do think there are moments when the ‘ton of bricks’ reaction is good, although it needs to be rare. Every so often a teenager will cross the line that is so absolute that they need to see you become angry. For example, if they’ve been drinking and driving. I think it’s healthy and good for them to see a parent being angry in those limited instances.

AG: You write that a key ingredient to being a happier parent is putting your own needs first. Why is self-care is so essential?

KJD: Self-care isn’t just about getting a massage. If we look back to previous generations of parents, they weren’t choosing what’s for dinner based on their kids’ preferences. They weren’t choosing their weekend activities based on what their children preferred to do. Adults are adults, and we’ve worked really hard in life to get where we are. We earn the money. We pay the rent. We buy the food. And because of this, we deserve to come first when it comes to most decisions. It’s not good for kids to feel they’re all-important or that every decision is made for their pleasure or convenience. That’s not the teen you want to raise. If you parent that way, why would children ever want to become adults?

Image by: Samantha Lee/Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

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For many parents, raising happy children is the holy grail of parenting success. But too often, we think happiness is about those fleeting moments of getting what you want. Lasting happiness is actually much more complicated, but much more rewarding. And yes, you can dramatically increase your child's chances of being happy, just by the way you raise him or her.

What makes a happy child who grows into a happy adult? Since happiness is a by-product of emotional health, this whole website is about helping you raise a happy child, from meeting your infant's need to be soothed, to helping your child develop optimism. But let's talk specifically about what makes humans happy.

Parent Informationteach To Be Happy Birthday

The latest research on happiness gives us surprising answers. Once survival, safety and basic comforts are assured, external circumstance doesn't affect our happiness level much. Our genes certainly contribute, but their affect can be ameliorated to ratchet up our happiness set points to a higher level. The largest determinant of our happiness turns out to be our own mental, emotional, and physical habits, which create the body chemistry that determines our happiness level.

We all know that some of us tend to be more upbeat than others. Part of this is inborn, just the fate of our genes that give us a happier mood. But much of our mood is habit.

Parent Informationteach To Be Happy Birthday Wishes

It may seem odd to have happiness referred to as a habit. But it's likely that by the time we're adults, we have settled into the habit of often being happy, or the habit of being largely unhappy.

Happiness is closely linked to three kinds of habits:

1. How we think and feel about the world, and therefore perceive our experiences.
2. Certain actions or habits, such as regular exercise, eating healthfully, meditating, connecting with other people, even -- proven in study after study -- regularly smiling and laughing!
3. Character traits such as self-control, industry, fairness, caring about others, citizenship, wisdom, courage, leadership, and honesty.

In practice, these character traits are just habits; tendencies to act in certain ways when confronted with certain kinds of situations. And certainly it makes sense that the more we exhibit these traits, the better our lives work, the better we feel about ourselves, and the more meaning we find in life -- so the happier we are.

Some of the habits that create happiness are visible, the ways Grandma told us we ought to live: work hard, value relationships with other people, keep our bodies healthy, manage our money responsibly, contribute to our community.

Others are more personal habits of self management that insulate us from unhappiness and create joy in our lives, such as managing our moods and cultivating optimism. But once we make such habits part of our lives, they become automatic and serve a protective function.

How can you help your child begin to develop the habits that lead to happiness?

Parent Informationteach To Be Happy Meme

1. Teach your child constructive mental habits that create happiness.

Managing our moods, positive self-talk, cultivating optimism, celebrating life, practicing gratitude, and appreciating our connected-ness to each other and the entire universe. Build these into your life together so you model them regularly, talk about using them, and your child will copy you.

2. Teach your child self-management routines that create happiness.

Parent Informationteach To Be Happy Wishes

Regular exercise, healthy eating, and meditation are all highly correlated with happiness levels. But you and your child may have your own, more personal strategies; for many people music is an immediate mood lifter, for others a walk in nature always works.

3. Cultivate fun.

The old saying that laughter is the best medicine turns out to be true. The more we laugh, the happier we are! It actually changes our body chemistry. So the next time you and your child want to shake off the doldrums, how about a Marx brothers movie?

And here’s a wonderful tool: smiling makes us happier, even when we initially force it. The feedback from our facial muscles informs us that we’re happy, and immediately improves our mood. Not to mention the moods of those around us-- so that feedback loop uplifts everyone.

4. Model positive self- talk.

We all need a cheerleader to help us over life’s many hurdles. Who says we can’t be our own? In fact, who better? Research shows that happy people give themselves ongoing reassurance, acknowledgment, praise and pep talks. Talk to yourself like someone you love, aloud so your kids can hear you.

5. Cultivate optimism...

...it inoculates against unhappiness. It’s true that some of us are born more optimistic than others, but we can all cultivate it. Click here for 'How you can help your child become more Optimistic'.

6. Help your child find joy in everyday things.

Studies show that people who notice the small miracles of daily life, and allow themselves to be touched by them, are happier. Daily life overflows with joyful occurrences: The show of the setting sun, no less astonishing for its daily repetition. The warmth of connection with the man at the newsstand who recognizes you and your child. The joy of finding a new book by a favorite author at the library. A letter from Grandma. The first crocuses of spring.

As Albert Einstein said,

'There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.'

Children learn by our example what's important in life.

7. Support your child to prioritize relationships.

Research shows that people who are happiest have more people in their lives, and deeper relationships with those people. Teach your child that while relationships take work, they're worth it.

8. Help your child develop gratitude.

'We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.' -- Frederick Keonig

Many people think they can't be grateful until they're happy, meaning until they have something to be grateful for. But look closely and you'll find that it's the opposite: people are happy because they are grateful. People who describe themselves as consciously cultivating gratefulness are rated as happier by those who know them, as well as by themselves.

Children don’t have a context for life, so they don’t know whether they are lucky or unlucky, only that their friend Brendon has more expensive sneakers. But there are many ways to help children learn to cultivate gratitude, which is the opposite of taking everything for granted. (Hint: Think modeling, not lecturing).

9. Accept all emotions.

Life is full of joy, but even for the happiest person life is also full of loss and pain, and we have daily reasons to grieve, large and small. Acknowledging our sad feelings isn't focusing on the negative, it's opening ourselves to the full range of being human. Accepting those uncomfortable sad feelings actually deepens our ability to take joy in our lives.

So choosing to be happy doesn't mean repressing our feelings. It means acknowledging and honoring all our feelings, and letting ourselves feel them. That allows us to move through the feelings, so they start to dissolve.

With your child, simply empathizing with her upset feelings will allow her to feel them, and will help the feelings start to evaporate so she can move on. This is not a process that can be rushed, so give your child (or yourself) whatever time you need.

10. Help him learn how to manage his moods.

Most people don’t know that they can choose to let bad moods go and consciously change their moods. But practice in doing this can really make us happier. You can practice this by:

• Monitoring your own moods.
  
• Allowing yourself to feel the emotions while you hold yourself with love.
  
• Noticing any negative thoughts that are giving rise to the emotions. ('My child shouldn't be acting this way! He'll grow up to be a terrible person if he does this!')
  
• Choosing a thought that makes you feel a little better. (For instance, 'My child is acting like a child because he IS a child. He won't always be like this.')

Of course, the hard part is choosing to change a bad mood. While you're in it, it's hard to take constructive action to change things. You don't have to go from desolate to cheerful. Just find a way to help yourself feel slightly better. That empowers you to actually face what's upsetting you, and try to solve it. Sometimes just changing our the way we're thinking about a situation really shifts things. So, instead of 'How can he be nasty to me like that, with all I do for him?!' you might try

'It's normal for children to get angry at their parents. He's struggling right now, and he needs me to try to understand him.'

How to help your child with her moods? Sometime when she's in a good mood, talk with her about strategies for getting into a better mood: what works for her? Share what works for you. Then, when she’s in a bad mood, start by empathizing. After she's had some time to feel her upset, ask her if she wants help to change her mood. Even if she’s able to choose a better mood only one out of ten times initially, she’ll soon start to notice how much better her life works when she does it.

11. Counteract the message that happiness can be bought.

As parents, we need to remember that we are not the only ones teaching our children about life. They get the constant media message that the goal of life is more money and more things. Ultimately, what we model and what we tell them will matter more, but we need to confront those destructive messages directly.

12. Help your child learn the joy of contribution.

Research shows that the pride of contributing to the betterment of society makes us happier, and it will make our children happier too. Our job as parents is to find ways for them to make a positive difference in the world so they can enjoy and learn from this experience.

“Happiness is a by-product of character. In people who are developing a strong character, there is a dramatically higher level of happiness than in those who live to chase after the next good time.” -Pat Holt and Grace Ketterman, MD

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