This month’s The Atlantic magazine has an insightful article about striving to raise the perfectly happy child. Is it working for them? Is it working for us?
The article reminded me of a boy I taught in first grade. His mom said earnestly to me, “I just want my son to be happy.”
At the time I thought it quite a basic statement. Of course, we all want our children to be happy!
But do we choose to have that journey to happiness be their own inward journey? A journey of the child’s own self-exploration of failures and disappointments?
Or do we make it our outward journey? Do we, as well-meaning adults, make everything work for them, make all aspects of their life failure-free?
Was my first grade boy on an inward journey of self-discovery? Or did well-meaning mom turn it into a lesson in how-to-manage-happiness-from-the-outside?
My first grade class prepared to walk to the pumpkin patch. It was down a very long hill and several blocks from school. Before we left, I talked with the children about choosing a pumpkin that they could carry all the way back up the hill and all the way back to school. Would you choose a great big pumpkin? Or would you choose one you could carry? (Great lesson in cause-and-effect, eh?)
All the children except – you guessed it! – chose wisely, even though not exactly the pumpkin they might have really wanted. Well, the “I just want my son to be happy” child made it up the hill with his pumpkin – with some effort. He made it 1 more block. And then he dropped it. It split a little, though still carvable. He was very upset and chose to leave the pumpkin behind. Okay. His choice. Natural consequences.
When mom heard what happened and that he wouldn’t have a pumpkin to carve the next day (though plenty of other help would be needed), what did she do? You guessed it. Mom drove him right back to the pumpkin patch to pick out a new (big) pumpkin to carve the next day.
If young children are shielded from the dropped pumpkins – the failures and disappointments they experience on a small scale and in small doses, when will they learn to handle the larger slings and arrows that life throws their way?
In the Atlantic article, Wendy Mogel, author of The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, highlights a new phenomenon among college freshman. Administrators are finding that more and more college students are unable to handle the usual setbacks and frustrations, and they’ve been dubbed teacups because these freshmen are “so fragile that they break down anytime things don’t go their way.”
Is this the child we intend to raise?
Sure, it’s difficult to watch your child fall, fail, and get frustrated. Sure, we want them to be happy. But should you jump in at every bump in the road? No! Let young child experience gravity, experience failure, experience frustration and disappointment when he is young and the stakes are small.
When young children learn to strive, they also learn their own growing capacities and their own resilience. They learn that they can rely on themselves to solve a problem or fix a mistake.
When they develop these qualities during their own inward journey towards happiness, then it will truly be their happiness, not yours.
As it should be.
Janet Allison is the author of Boys Alive! Bring Out Their Best! and is hosting Boys Alive! The Online EVENT! Practical Solutions for Parents. She interviews leading experts on a wide range of topics – you’ll be informed, inspired, and have practical solutions you can implement immediately. And it’s FREE…yep, all FREE! Register at: www.boysaliveevent.com The EVENT begins July 12th with mp3 recordings available.
