Happiness IS a choice and you can cultivate habits daily to help you become happy. It is my passion to help parents and their children to be able to develop these habits and for this reason I am delivering another Happiness Workshop lasting for five weeks.
Nearly every parent I work with struggles with this, “Why can’t my child just_____.” You can fill in the blank with a variety of phrases like “just concentrate in class? Just be less angry? Just reach their potential? Just listen to me? Parents sometimes feel guilty because they think it’s their fault. I am here to tell you it is NOT your fault. You weren’t given a manual to deal with every issue your child faced and I understand that – I’ve been a parent myself and have struggled with some of the above phrases. What I have put together in my course is what I wished my own daughter had, and what I wished someone had told me when I was a young and niave parent. Teachers too, have commented on the value of what I have put together and some have said that this should be part of the curriculum. I think it should be too – and maybe it will be one day.
So, happiness is a cultivated habit that is developed over time. Everyone knows that when we are happy we think better, feel better and perform better; we even feel healthier when we’re happy. Research states that our organs and our senses work better when we’re thinking pleasant thoughts.
Here’s the reality though. Children’s brains need to be genuinely interested in something in order to take action. When most of us are faced with something that we really want to do, we simply press our imaginary “just get it done” button, and voila! We are able to make it happen. In your child’s brain, the challenge is that the “just get it done” button has a glass box around it! They can see it, but they have a very hard time accessing it. They need to have the attention and be motivated.
Motivation can be cultivated by focusing on what we are good at and rewarding ourselves for that. This self-appreciation can bring real happiness from within and is not a product of material objects but of thoughts. Staying focused whilst keeping our attitude in check, especially during tough times…and children can experience a lot of tough times…is when they can make the decision to be happy – or not happy.
Happiness is something that we determine. It is a choice and teaching children that nothing will make them happy until they decide to be happy is an important life skill to learn.
