Why You Shouldn't Focus on Your Child's Happiness

I believe it was Isocrates who said that the healthy child wants to become an adult. In raising our children well, we must teach them how to act and think like mature people.

Yet, the phrase we hear most often repeated is this: 

"I just want him to be happy." 

But if you think about it, it isn't what you most want. What you most want is that he grows up to be a decent, hard-working, mature adult. If you raise him to become these things, then happiness will follow.

As the ancients understood and current research now proves, happiness is found in living a virtuous life. The modern pursuit of pleasure and good times, it turns out, is just a myth being thrust upon us by very sophisticated and manipulative marketing techniques.

Contrary to this empty rhetoric, a good life does not come from the pursuit and acquisition of pleasure, in whatever form you desire, but it comes from being a virtuous person. As the concept of "virtue" seems to be an idea that’s gone out of fashion, let me share with you some of the qualities that a virtuous person might possess:

Humility, courage, mercy, patience, tolerance, diligence, and generosity. These are some of the qualities a truly “happy” person might embody.

To inculcate these kind of qualities in your child, you must begin when he is very young.

You must train him in the way of good habits, and then, and only then, will you be able to raise a happy child who later becomes a happy adult. One state naturally follows the other. 

What is the key to raising a child with good habits?

Raise a child who is obedient and does the right thing, not from fear of you, but from a deep love and respect for you. 

We don't need behavioral studies to prove this; we need to pay attention. A child who is always complaining and throwing tantrums and always asking for this and that is not a happy child, is he? Nor is the child who is always doing what he is told not to do. 

However, the kind of training that protects from these unhappy states must start when your child is very young. You should begin training your child in the ways of good behavior as soon as he or she turns two years of age.

If you wait until much later to begin, the training process becomes increasingly more difficult. Waiting too long means you will need to correct bad habits first and then work on instilling the good habits in your child.

It’s a much more tedious and frustrating experience to correct bad habits than it is to avoid them from forming in the first place.

“Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.”

— Aristotle

If you fail to raise your child well, then he will be destined to spend the rest of his life working to correct deeply ingrained negative traits (a lifetime pursuit and not for the easily discouraged). Even worse, he will perpetuate and suffer the ills in life (as will everyone he encounters) that arise from not being a good person.

You see, the opposite of the virtuous person would be the wretched one who will never know any real happiness. We've all known wretched people, especially as they get older and nature carves their wretched states into their faces. We certainly don't want this for our children!

In a nutshell, if you focus on the happiness factor when your child is young, you will fail to raise a happy child. Focus on raising a decent child first, and his happiness will follow. 

If you don't know where to begin, do this: throw out all of your parenting books and stop asking your friends for advice (the latter is the equivalent of the blind leading the blind).  Moving forward, begin to think about the consequences of your actions as a parent.

Start asking yourself questions such as, "If I do this, then what is the message I am giving my child?" If I let him do this, then what am I teaching him about his behavior and the journey of life?"

For example, this may surprise you to know that many parents look to their children's desires to decide how they should educate them. I know this for a fact (no studies done, yet) because the parents say things to me like, "I thought about homeschooling, but he wanted to go to school with his neighborhood friends," or "I thought about homeschooling, but he's so social, and I think he'd be happier in school."

How you educate your child is a huge decision that will alter the course of his life, but he is too young to make such a life-changing decision. You are the adult; this is your decision to make for your child. 

It doesn't matter if he prefers to go to school with friends or that you think he would be happier in school because he has friends to socialize with every day. What matters is whether or not a school is the best place for your child or whether another option might be such as homeschooling.

You have to weigh the pros and cons accurately and objectively before you make this kind of a decision.

Base your decision upon your values and what you want for your children. If you want to raise decent children, you have to consider the moral environment of the child.

If you're going to raise highly intelligent children, you have to evaluate the level of academic training a school offers. If you want both, then you have to look for an educational model that provides both,

If you only care about your child's immediate happiness, then you can let him make this decision. 

I used the example of educational decisions because I hear about them a lot, but the truth is that there are many decisions we let our children make every day, such as when they can finish playing; when they need to do their chores; when they need to get ready for bed. 

Instead of training them to understand that these are non-negotiable commands we make of our children, we go to the negotiating table with them and let them argue their case for an extension of time for whatever it is they want to do.

We also exhaust ourselves in the process, which is one reason parents find raising children so challenging today. It's always tiring to have to argue with someone and then give in to them when they should have done what you asked them to do in the first place.

Children need most, and what they don't have enough of are adults who guide them on their way to maturity by concerning themselves less with whether or not their children are happy and more with whether or not the parents are training their children well.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

— Aristotle

The point to childhood is to prepare for adulthood; you should be less concerned about making a child happy and more concerned about raising a child who grows up to be a responsible, honorable, and mature adult.

It's not uncommon today to see grown children well into their 30's, or 40's still living at home because they can't make it on their own. The other day, my 30-something chiropractor told me that half of his friends still live at home.

I know of many situations where the parents still have aging children at home. An offspring well into adulthood and living at home out of necessity was unheard of when I was young.

Literally.

Make your priority for your children less about their happiness and more about behaving well and doing the right thing.

If you do, the chances are strong that you'll be able to enjoy your golden years knowing your kids are doing well and on the way to acquiring the kind of happiness that comes from living a good life.

*****

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

Become a Smart Homeschooler, literally, and give your child a first-rate, screen-free education at home and enjoy doing it. Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course.

For parents of children under age seven, Raise Your Child Well to Live a Triumphant Life, course will be open again sometime in March, 2021.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler, a lover of the classics, and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 19 years of experience working in children’s education.

Utilizing her unusual skill set, coupled with the unique mentors she was fortunate to have, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

☞ Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.

5 Ways to Stimulate Your Child's Love of Learning

The other night a friend showed me a clip of her nine-month-old baby trying to imitate her mother's expressions. I looked into the baby's eyes as I watched the video and the intense alertness that I witnessed, the acute observation of each facial move in her mother's face, was fascinating.

The baby wanted to know how to make the same faces her mother was making, and she was trying to understand how to do this by conducting a scientific investigation.

It's the intense desire to know that all healthy children possess, yet what happens to their curiosity as they grow older? Why do so many children forsake that infinite sense of wonder that is so innate to each of us? 

“No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire.”

— L. Frank Baum

One of the reasons this happens today is because too many children start school at young ages, and by the time they reach kindergarten, first grade, if they are lucky, the light within them begins to dim.

Consider this: if your child’s desire to explore and understand the world around him is constantly thwarted by a teacher’s dictates, he will begin to give up his investigative work, and his sense of curiosity will eventually wilt.

For example, if a child has a small shovel in his hand, but every time he tries to shovel something a teacher tells him to stop, he will eventually stop picking the shovel up.

When a child cannot follow the lead of his curiosity, or is not in an environment where he can exercise his desire to know, as children who are in daycare and preschools from early ages are, they begin to put their curiosity down. 

If you have a child whose curiosity is waning, or whose curiosity you want to stimulate, here are five things you can do:

1. If you have to put your child into an outside program, look for a daycare or preschool that is play-based and ideally held in the outdoors, such as a Forest School. Make sure they are operated by people who understand what children need at these tender ages. If you aren't sure what the philosophy for the school is, ask them. Please do not be shy about these matters; after all, this is your child, and you want to make sure he is under the best care.

2. Immediately remove all screens from your child's life both inside and outside the home. Under no circumstances should you hand him your cell phone to quiet him because you are busy. Screens are a cause of a dimming curiosity; not only that but they will thwart your child's brain development. 

3. Do not entertain your child! Let him entertain himself. It is not that you don't ever play with your child, but only that you do not become his full-time playmate. Allow him to follow the dictates of his curiosity and figure things out for himself. Children are little scientists; let him conduct his own experiments. 

4. Be curious yourself. Take your child into the outdoors and explore with him. Let him walk barefoot on fallen leaves and dip his feet into spring water to awaken his senses. Bring his attention to the songs of birds and the rustling of the trees as the wind blows through them. Collect a bug or two and read about them when you get home. Notice a particular bird sound (my favorite is the red-winged blackbird!) and look the bird up in a reference book or on the internet when you get home. Try to imitate the bird's song with your child. Ask him questions to stimulate a conversation and discover the answers together, such as how birds fly and what foods they eat. 

5. Lastly, if you can, don't put your child into any school programs until he is at least ten years old. Until then, teach him yourself because so many learning problems take root during those early years. The first few grades of elementary school are easy to teach when you know what you are doing. 

Remember that the desire to know is our natural state, but we have this yearning socialized out of us in various ways, the least not being school. Our innate desire to know, however, is still there within us.

“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”

— Benjamin Franklin

If your child's desire for knowledge has dimmed for any of the above reasons, understand that you can help him awaken it. It is something you must make the intention to do too because reaching his full potential in life begins with the desire to know.

Why should he become less than he could be when he can be so much more?

Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.

Become a Smart Homeschooler, literally, and give your child a first-rate, screen-free education at home and enjoy doing it. Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course.

For parents of children under age seven, Raise Your Child Well to Live a Triumphant Life, course will be open again sometime in March, 2021.

Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an educator, veteran homeschooler, a lover of the classics, and a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 19 years of experience working in children’s education.

Utilizing her unusual skill set, coupled with the unique mentors she was fortunate to have, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.

☞ Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.