If you ask any parent what they want for their child, they are likely to answer: “to be happy!” We all want our children to be happy. It is a natural desire. However, there is a big difference between wanting them to be happy and believing that this is our main responsibility as parents. And the consequences of that confusion can be particularly harmful for everyone, including the children themselves.
An unrealistic expectation that generates very real frustration
As parents, we must meet the physical and psychological needs of our children. And that not only means feeding and clothing them but also striving to create a safe environment in which they can explore and learn, love them tenderly, shower them with affection, offer them a 360-degree education, enhance their interests and have fun with them.
But we cannot take the responsibility of making them happy all the time because this is an unreasonable expectation. Of course, playing with your kids or reading them a bedtime story is likely to make them happy. And it is essential to cultivate those moments, but you cannot make children happy every day and at all times, simply because it is impossible.
And impossible standards end up generating frustration. Getting into a loop of wasted efforts and counterproductive sacrifices will make you doubt your ability as a mother or father.
When you rush to play with your children so they don’t get bored, satisfy their every whim so they don’t feel bad, or solve their problems so they don’t get angry, you assume an unsustainable burden in the long term and, at the same time, you feed a posture egocentric that has nothing to do with happiness.
In fact, what message will you end up conveying to children? That they are the center of the universe and that everyone else should strive to make them happy. And, therefore, their happiness does not depend on them, but on others.
It is not even healthy to impose the obligation on children to be happy, turning them into a kind of little adepts of positive thinking. The truth is that no child can be happy all the time. And it is not even recommended that it be.
“Negative” emotions are as important as “positive” ones.
Emotional development cannot be taught, it must be experienced. That means that, no matter how much it hurts us, children have to face the full range of emotions. From time to time they have to feel angry, sad, uncomfortable, bored, worried, frustrated…
The more you focus on trying to make your child happy, the less he or she will develop a tolerance for frustration and setbacks. When you convey the idea that it is necessary to escape from “negative” feelings, you are telling him or her that these emotions are bad or inappropriate. But the more you try to artificially boost “positive” emotions, the more he will fall into experiential avoidance and the closer he will be to anxiety.
On the other hand, when children experience these “negative” emotional states and see that they can overcome them, they gain confidence in their ability to face the next setback. If you try to spare your children all unpleasant situations, raising them within a “fairly happy bubble,” you will rob them of the opportunity to develop their emotional management skills and gain self-confidence. You will take away their chance to become resilient people.
Boredom, for example, can generate frustration at first, but then it becomes fertile ground for curiosity. Encourage children to explore, be more creative, invent and discover things that they would not have paid attention to if you had immediately jumped in to fill their “dead time” to avoid that little initial discomfort.
On the other hand, these types of “negative” emotional experiences highlight happiness. They act as a necessary counterweight to value happy moments more. Knowing the other side of the coin broadens the child’s perspective and enriches the experience of happiness when it occurs.
Beyond the sugar-coated vision of childhood: The main mission of parents in the real world
Many adults have an idealized vision of childhood: we see it as a happy time. And while it is true that it is a phase with fewer obligations and worries than adulthood, it is also the time in which we immerse ourselves in the world for the first time.
A study carried out at the University of California, for example, found that parents tend to minimize their young children’s worries and believe that they are happier than they report. That means we must strive to put our feet on the ground.
If you focus on making your child happy, you are likely to forget your main function: preparing him for life. And that means teaching him how to navigate the turbulent sea of emotions. All the emotions. It also means helping him develop his personality and guiding him so that he learns to solve his problems and find his own path.
It involves helping him become a mature and emotionally intelligent person. Be next to him when he falls and encourage him to get up. That way you will help him to appreciate happiness more when he finds it and develop his ability to cope when there is none.
If we focus only on happiness, it is quite likely that we will fail. But if our goal is to help them build a meaningful life in which everything has a place – both the “good” and the “bad” – it is quite likely that these children will find happiness on their own. Because, at the end of the day, happiness is not an end in itself, but a byproduct of leading a meaningful life and facing reality with maturity.
Source:
Lagattuta, K.H.; Sayfan, L. & Bamford, C (2012) Do you know how I feel? Parents underestimate worry and overestimate optimism compared to child self-report. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology; 113 (2): 211-232.
