Brain-based parenting

Hands up if one of the things you want most for your kids is for them to be happy?

Often, well-meaning parents work so hard to protect their children from negative emotions and difficult aspects of life (like grief and illness) that we forget to teach them how to deal with their inevitability. We want to replace that feeling of sadness, with happiness, that frustration with relief, push away the bad thoughts and think about the good things instead. But life isn’t always peachy and rosy, and pushing away emotions just forces them to spring up in other ways.

Let’s be honest- this summer was bleak. ¾ of brits stayed in the UK for their summer holiday and 100% of parents in my household (ok, thats just 2 out of 2) found 6 weeks of juggling childcare and work was more snacking, than relaxing.

My kids are 4 and 6, the ages I always dreamed I would be taking them to Disneyland, staying in the resort hotels (the dream, when I was a kid). Instead, since money is tight as I launch my startup in the midst of an ongoing cost of living crisis, we went on a less-than-glamorous holiday to Plymouth and Newquay. Much to my surprise, the kids were incredibly excited about the car journey, the flat we stayed in, the freezing cold beach and basically all aspects of being away from home. The reality is, kids have so little experience and context in the world, that basically everything is exciting for them. And while we may want to give them all of the best experiences in the world, as soon as we can, that might not be the best thing for them.

What does the research say?

Decades of research on happiness and life satisfaction have highlighted the most important facets of living a good life - something we all want for our kids and ourselves. One of the most famous studies is the Harvard Study of Adult Development tracking the lives of 700 people, and their offspring over the last 85 years. The key findings (which have been replicated in many other settings) are that the key to happiness is in the quality of our relationships and the avoidance of loneliness. What doesn’t predict happiness? Wealth, or traditional measures of success (like job title). Achievement can lead to happiness and life satisfaction, if it is in something fulfilling. Pushing your child into a law degree is not a route to happiness, unless they find the practice of law fulfilling. But we know all this stuff right….(ok, I do need reminding whenever I think a new car is going to solve all my problems).

What does this mean for my parenting?

So how do you raise happy children…

😭 Don’t avoid negative emotions. When our children are babies, our job is to find the source of their discomfort or pain, and correct it … feed them more, change their nappy, check their temperature… As they learn to express themselves, most of their needs are still simple and easily met. As they get older their needs become more complex, but their ability to understand and regulate their emotions takes a while to catch up. While we might want to push away the bad feelings, we actually need to teach them how to feel, understand and manage their emotions. Its less about, “don’t worry, it’s not that bad” and more about “that sounds awful, I’m sorry…” then be quiet and listen (don’t try to fix).

 🧠 Model positive behaviour. As always, what we do is more powerful than what we say. If we spend all our time moaning about a lack of money, focusing on the negative and acting as if life cannot be good without material things, then our children will learn that the source of happiness is material things.

😈 Beware hedonic adaptation Although we want to give our children everything- all the brand new toys, the best experiences, the finest hotels- this is not a route to happiness. In fact, it is probably a route to dissatisfaction. The problem is that we adapt very quickly to external sources of happiness - like the nice hotel with the pool, the fancy restaurant - and when the novelty wears off we return to our baseline level of happiness. We then need a greater pleasure - a nicer hotel, finer food, to achieve that level of happiness again. We may inadvertently set our children onto an hedonic adaptation treadmill that actually gets them no closer to happiness, but puts more pressure on us to keep providing these fleeting experiences and things.

🧠 Engage in mindfulness- that isn’t just the practice of mindfulness (though that works too), but anything that induces a flow state and allows us to experience pleasure in the challenge of achievement or creation. Puzzles are a great example of this. People can do puzzles, or create art, or garden for decades without adapting the satisfaction it brings them. Get your children into hobbies like art, music or doing puzzles to give them this ongoing source of well-being and fulfilment.

It is finally here! The guide to the teenage brain written in collaboration with Dr Amy Reichelt