I sometimes put my name on the waiting lists for popular books at the library. I requested the book Raising Happiness by Christine Carter probably three or four months ago. I was #25 or #26 in line, and my turn finally came up just last week.
This is an excellent book, both for children and parents. I don’t know what the rest of you think, but I know very few parents who consciously raise their kids for happiness. Success, maybe, and confidence, maybe, but happiness? I think many parents view happiness as a fleeting kind of state, one which pales in comparison to more concrete goals like achievement or academic skills. I think Western cultures view happiness as more of a temporary state than a goal.
Which could be one of the reasons Carter includes quotes by the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh and other Buddhist teachers throughout this book. Carter focuses on harmony by encouraging parents to:
1. Be happy themselves
2. Build a community/village around their children
3. Focus on the process, not the results
4. Teach gratitude, forgiveness, and optimism
5. Raise emotional intelligence
etcetera.
Check out this book if you’re looking for a good book on parenting. If more parents focused on their children’s happiness, the world would be a much happier place. Some may think of “happy” children as those who sit around playing video games and not achieving, but Carter focuses on encouraging a child’s intrinsic motivation to succeed and to contribute to society as a means of achieving happiness. She talks about praising effort as a means to encourage children to do their best. How often do children these days see the glass half full rather than half empty? I think it’s a worthwhile goal that could do wonders for our children.
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I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
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I wouldn’t say...
I would like to flip the script. I would like to put forth the daring proposition that the answers to the question of how to raise children to become healthy, mentally and emotionally sound, well-balanced individuals comes not from adults with PhD’s, but from children themselves. Wow, what a concept!
The main business of children is to have fun. Children know how to have fun. Adults don’t. Yet adults constantly impose their way of thinking and lifestyle upon children. These days even pre-schoolers have a demanding schedule of musical instruments and academics. The obsession with education as a competitive sport is a plague in the Asian-American community. Then, for at least two decades, children endure creativity-smothering, regimented ignorance factories known as “schools”. Ken Robinson says that creativity must become the new “literacy” and that schools kill creativity.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
Stuart Brown says that we need to take play and fun more seriously. Lots of play and fun in childhood makes smarter, happier adults later on.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html
is there a section there that says ’5. if your child is asian and male, raise them to become an activist. he will thank you later’ . just kidding. this is an insightful book and although i dont have children, there is something indeed cuddly and heartwarming about this post. heres to the next generation of asian american superkids.
ABC,
I think you’d love the book. Happiness is something we as a society just don’t talk enough about. I think it’s different in at least some other cultures. We need happiness!
Oi,
Sorry about the overly aggressive filter, Kobukson. I’m going to check out those videos. It’s supposed to e-mail me when comments go into moderation, but I think I had the wrong e-mail in the system.
Great comment, btw, Kobukson. I agree 100%. Seriously, I think some AA parents smother the creativity out of their kids.
Here’s a message to AA parents: for god’s sake, stop sending your kids to summer school! When everybody’s out having fun, sitting in a stuffy classroom trying to cram in a whole semester of knowledge in just two months just so your kid can get ahead in math is a form of torture and should be illegal. I remember spending my summers hanging out with my white friends and dating white girls because, seriously, I shit you not, ALL my Asian friends were in summer school and SAT classes. Hell, when I was little, I spent a lot of time during the summer in libraries. Even that’s more fun than summer class because at least I got to read the stuff I enjoy.
“Children know how to have fun. Adults don’t. “
I do
@ Leon: I loved summer school as a kid! If it weren’t for summer school, I would have grown up thinking I was a dork-anomaly. Summer school put to rest any suspicions that I was the only kid who practiced 3 hours of violin on a Saturday; I wasn’t the only kid fascinated with Zoroaster or wondered whether we could use sine, cosine, and the unit circle to mathematically prove parallel universes; and I didn’t have to read Kierkegaard in a vacuum anymore, I could read him and then talk about it with other people who also read him and who also want to talk about it.
@ Kobukson: That Stuart Brown TED video was amazing.
I agree. That Stuart Brown TED video was great. I should do something to incorporate that play into my own life.
I actually liked summer school too. But I think the pressure often got to kids. So for me, summer school is good; excess pressure not so good.
Wow, that’s good to know. Hopefully that means some of my friends weren’t as miserable as I thought they were. My parents tried putting me in summer school once. I think it was some Algebra class. I failed that class because I never did the homework and they never put me in another summer class again. I just read a recent article by Time about how low-income kids actually fall behind during the long summer break because of lack of social activities and resources, partly because they couldn’t go out at all given the danger in their neighborhoods. That puts a totally new perspective on things, but I’m not gonna derail this any further.
I know I should pick up the book myself, but I wonder if it talks about the pressure that children go through from high expectations and whether their parents also teach them how to deal with failure. I think this is a common theme in Asian American kids. I remember spending two miserable years in college because the major I picked was one I thought I should go in because it was an Asian thing to do, and when I struggled it made me depressed and I was afraid to leave because that would make me a failure. It wasn’t until my mom assured me it’s okay that I finally switched to another school.
You should definitely pick up the book.
It talks about high expectations. I don’t have the book with me right now, but when she says to focus on the process rather than the results, I think that’s where she touches on expectations and imposing what you want on your kids. By focusing on the process (i.e. learning and studying) vs. results (get an engineering degree or else), you can encourage kids to find a passion.
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