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We've posted before on parental do-overs - things we would do differently if given a second chance at raising our kids.
I was reminded of one of mine recently when reading a summary of Edward Hallowell's excellent book, 'The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness.' Dr. Hallowell, the child psychiatrist known for his writings on attention deficit disorder, asserts that it is possible to plant in your children early the ability to be happy - that is, to feel that their lives are going well.
Happiness, he asserts, is what most parents truly want for their children. Some may say when asked that they want for their kids such things as security, success, opportunity, prosperity or freedom. But given a chance to linger over the question, and reflect on it, most parents are likely to mention the word happiness at some point.
The summary of Dr. Hallowell's book, which appeared in a newsletter 'Work and Family Life,' got me thinking about times when I have seen my children truly happy.
I remembered a spring day when my daughter, who was in elementary school at the time and missing a couple of front teeth, started dancing spontaneously around our front yard. She spun around in circles, her chin tilted upward, her arms outspread in an arc, until she collapsed dizzy with laughter on the lawn. No one watching could help but laugh too. It was all over in less than two minutes, but I remember it still.
With my son, it was a first dune-buggy ride. A thrill-seeker even at 6 years of age, he sat beside a professional driver in the front seat, while his sister, father and I sat in the back. The rest of us yelled and gripped the safety bar in fear as we roared over the Oregon Dunes at breathtaking speeds. But my son just grinned beneath his goggles. After the driver took a daredevil plunge from atop a towering dune to the banks of a lake in a deep inlet below, my son looked back at us with an expression of sheer joy. 'Was that scary?' his dad asked.
'Scary?' he said incredulously. 'I was born for this!' His joy in such edgy thrills has persisted through years of skateboarding, riding ATVs and snowboarding.
If I had it to do over, I would try for more of those moments. And when they came, I would savor them and think more about how we, as a family, got there. I did my best to prepare my children to dream big, to respect others, to have compassion, to work hard, to care for themselves. But I could have done better on the happiness thing. Looking back as they approach adulthood, those moments were the most precious.
In his book, Dr. Hallowell says parents can plant the seeds of adult happiness in children in several ways: by showing them unconditional love; by helping them learn to enjoy free, creative play; by encouraging them to practice new skills; by helping them experience a sense of mastery, and by giving them recognition for that mastery. 'We can't control everything in our children's lives, but we can make sure they learn the basics of the skill of happiness,' he writes. Readers, do you have favorite moments when you or your children were truly happy? How do you foster that in your kids? Do you agree that the ability to be happy can be instilled in children? 2009-10-16
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