April 11, 2025 | Tagged Parenting,
How to parent the experience of happiness in our children
PARENTING HAPPINESS
Here are a few aspects of parenting around the topic of happiness to consider. What is happiness in your family? Is it going to Disneyland? Is it finishing chores? Is it meaningful conversation? Is it watching your kids excel in academics and sports? How happiness is defined for the family and within the family reveals much about the health and unity of the family.
For example, if a mom’s entire life goal is to make her son happy, she may be tempted to allow bad attitude and poor behavior for the sake of “making her child happy.” Though the son wins for the moment, the cookie, or toy, or video game through his tantrum or bad behavior, the mom is not developing the character of a son who will be truly happy.
Consider a dad who lives through the success of his daughter on the court. When she plays well, he is ecstatic, but when she doesn’t play well, he is depressed. His entire happiness centers around the actions of his daughter. This creates undue pressure on a child who must now be responsible to navigate the challenges of teenage life while making her father happy.
Consider a family who makes Disneyland the ultimate happiness, and everything else is “boring” when they are not at Disneyland. Instead of Disneyland, you could replace it with volleyball season or tournaments, playing video games, or being with a boyfriend.
Families can find true happiness not in external success, or fun, or escape, or getting whatever we want but through the deepest love and care for each other and the world. When siblings find joy in being a brother or a sister, when moms and daughters unite around meaningful conversation that brings genuine friendship and laughter, when fathers love their families and spend dedicated time to building community, true happiness emerges.
Amazing parents work to raise young men and women who play sports well and live with gratitude, hope, commitment, courage, and wonder. Great parents value what can’t be seen more than the trophies on the shelf. Powerful homes are committed to the highest levels of happiness—loving God, love people, and loving life.
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