Is Happiness Actually Important?
Thursday, November 19th, 2009 Posted in Main essay, Marriage | 1 Comment »Is it worth staying in a marriage that makes you unhappy? That question has generated more than a little heat on this blog. But in order to answer that question, we have to answer an even deeper ...
Should We Stay Together for the Kids?
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 Posted in Main essay, Marriage, On Life & Being a Parent | 18 Comments »Last night, one of my best friends called my cell phone twice in one minute—our signal for distress, the indication that I needed to pick up the phone right then, even if I was in the middle of dinner. I’d ...
Holiday Happiness: Is it all About Forgiveness?
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 Posted in Forgiveness, Main essay | 6 Comments »As Halloween excitement mounts in our household and the nip of fall is finally forcing us to find our jackets (I know, it is good to be a Californian), one thing is clear: The holidays are ...
How to Love Bigger, Better, More
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 Posted in Growth & fixed mindsets, Main essay | 4 Comments »Let’s not lie. Despite his controversial views on parenting, I love Michael Lewis. I LOVE his book about parenting, even though much of it goes against what I preach; I love his sense of humor; I love that ...
Are Parents Today Too Needy?
Friday, October 9th, 2009 Posted in Main essay, On Life & Being a Parent | 3 Comments »Michael Lewis is worried that now that he isn’t writing about his kids, he isn’t going to pay enough attention to them. To quote Jon Stewart, this is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard a parent admit ...
Are You Sadder Than Your Mother?
Thursday, October 1st, 2009 Posted in Fostering social connections, Main essay, Mothering, Uncategorized | 11 Comments »Thanks probably to my mother herself, I’m not. (Sadder than her, that is. I’m almost certainly happier.) But many women today are sadder than their peers were 40 years ago, according to a study by Penn researchers called ...
The Importance of Pain
Thursday, September 24th, 2009 Posted in Main essay, On Life & Being a Parent | 10 Comments »I think the worst feeling I ever have as a parent is when I see my children suffer. I know this is true for my mother, too: she never could stand to see me in any sort of pain. ...
Let Kids Just Play
Thursday, September 17th, 2009 Posted in Main essay, Play & creativity, School & scheduling | 3 Comments »Both of my kids’ teachers this year put articles in their back-to-school information packets about leaving kids with some unscheduled time. You know, bus schedules, info about field trips and the parents club, and by the way: please, please ...
Losing my Mindfulness
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 Posted in Changing bad habits into good ones, Main essay, Mindfulness & Meditation, On Life & Being a Parent, Real-life parenting, Self-discipline | 8 Comments »It seems everyone who read the post about losing my temper in the supermarket has the same question: what should we do instead of employing the grocery-store grab? My complete answer to this question will be posted on next week’s ...
How Intelligence Develops
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 Posted in Giving & Altruism, Main essay, Success, Trends & Research Participation | 2 Comments »I’ve had a low-grade strep infection for well over a year now, which is ironic since I’m totally saturated in studies which show all the ways that positive emotions (like happiness, gratitude, and compassion) boost your immune system. Nowhere ...
The Happiness Habit Tracker: Backbone of Our New Routine
Friday, August 21st, 2009 Posted in Changing bad habits into good ones, Discipline, Main essay, School & scheduling, Self-discipline | Leave a Comment »I love the Fall, the start of the school year. I always have, and I think it is because I love the new beginning it represents, plus the opportunity the school year brings for a new routine. But ...
Getting Back in the School Year Routine
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 Posted in Changing bad habits into good ones, Discipline, Empathy, Main essay, School & scheduling, Self-discipline | 2 Comments »"Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony." —Thomas Merton Summer is coming to a close...Summer is a time of lovely things that look like bad habits once school rolls around again: sleeping late, ...
Put Your Own Oxygen Mask on First
Saturday, May 9th, 2009 Posted in Holidays, Main essay, Mothering, On Life & Being a Parent | 7 Comments »I'm always struck by our willingness as mothers to take care of our children—and often their fathers and a host of others around us—before we take care of ourselves. Right around now, at the end of the school year, ...
How to get kids to do boring (but necessary) tasks
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 Posted in Changing bad habits into good ones, Discipline, Main essay, Rewards, Self-discipline | 28 Comments »Self-discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from expectations and demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear. —H.A. Dorfman After much background material about why I was using material rewards before (habit + ...
Punished by Rewards?
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 Posted in Changing bad habits into good ones, Discipline, Main essay, Rewards, Self-discipline | 17 Comments »Like most parents, I used to (okay, I sometimes still do) bribe my children. Constantly. As in: “I will give the first kid to have her room clean a whole sheet of new stickers.” Life is full of undesirable ...
Unhappiness is a Bad Habit
Thursday, April 16th, 2009 Posted in Changing bad habits into good ones, Discipline, Main essay, Rewards, Self-discipline | 9 Comments »The other day when I wasn’t giving Molly exactly what she wanted exactly when she wanted it, she yelled at me “If I can’t have a playdate with Claire right now, then I am never going to hug you again!” Made ...
Raising Cheaters
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 Posted in Changing bad habits into good ones, Cheating, Growth & fixed mindsets, Main essay, Success, Success & failure | 3 Comments »Last week I visited a high school that has a really spectacular Honor Code. There are no locks on the doors, and all the exams are unproctored. For more than 100 years, kids at this school haven’t cheated. But ...
Emotion Coaching: One of the Most Important Parenting Practices in the History of the Universe
Thursday, March 19th, 2009 Posted in Changing bad habits into good ones, Conflict, Emotion coaching, Empathy, Main essay, Teaching Emotional Literacy | 30 Comments »According to John Gottman, one of my all-time favorite researchers, emotion-coaching is the key to raising happy, resilient, and well-adjusted kids. His research—30 years of it—shows that it is not enough to be a warm, engaged, and loving parent. ...
Helping Children Cope with Death
Friday, March 13th, 2009 Posted in Grieving, Main essay, Teaching Emotional Literacy | 7 Comments »Not so long ago, a sweet child in my community—my kids' buddy from preschool—was killed in an accident. For a full year, I descended into dark periods of deep grief. Fortunately, I also often rose to the occasion, ...
Fake It Till You Make It
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 Posted in Getting the ratios right, Main essay, Success & failure | 3 Comments »Should you ever just pretend to be happy when you’re not? All this talk about getting our ratio of positive to negative emotions up prompted that question—and the answer is more complex than you might think. Feigning happiness doesn’t count ...
Better Than Sex (and Appropriate for Kids)
Thursday, February 12th, 2009 Posted in Compassion, Forgiveness, Main essay, Mindfulness & Meditation, On Life & Being a Parent, Sex, Teach kids to meditate, Video | 5 Comments »Might be that sitting with your legs crossed repeating stuff like “May all beings be free from suffering,” is a little too far-out for you. I’m a scientist for crying out loud, so you can imagine how I might ...
Love: More is More
Thursday, February 5th, 2009 Posted in Compassion, Dads & fathering, Family meals, Fostering social connections, Main essay, On Life & Being a Parent, Praise, Social intelligence, Teaching Emotional Literacy | 2 Comments »You may think Valentine’s Day is for lovers, but I say it is for kids! I didn’t really know how darn much love I had in me until I had kids – and I’ve always been a lover, not ...
Getting the Ratios Right
Thursday, January 29th, 2009 Posted in Getting the ratios right, Growth & fixed mindsets, Main essay, Marriage, On Life & Being a Parent, Praise, Success | 3 Comments »Is it possible to praise your children too much? Last year I spent a lot of time emphasizing the importance of growth-mindset praise, and as a result this is a question I get asked a lot. The corollary ...
Ten 2008 Tips for Raising Happy Kids
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 Posted in Changing bad habits into good ones, Conflict, Family meals, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gratitude, Kindness, Main essay, Materialism, On Life & Being a Parent, Optimism, School & scheduling, Video | 2 Comments »Replace Your Kids’ Annoying Behaviors with Happiness Habits Some of the most irritating things our kids do (whining and tattling come to mind) are nothing more than bad habits, and as we all know, bad habits are tough to break! ...
May Your Holiday Glass Be Half Full…
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 Posted in Holidays, Main essay, Video | 1 Comment »Though this is a stressful time of year – this year perhaps more than ever – it is finally time to kick back and enjoy our families over the holidays. Two things to remember: A crazy pile of presents isn’t ...
Strong Women, Close Friends
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 Posted in Fostering social connections, Friendship, Main essay, On Life & Being a Parent, Video | Leave a Comment »"Throughout our lives, friends enclose us, like pairs of parentheses," writes National Book Award nominee Beth Kephart. "They shift our boundaries, crater our terrain. They fume through the cracks of our tentative houses, and parts of them always ...
Would You Guys Just Knock It Off? 10 Steps to Peace in Your Household
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 Posted in Conflict, Forgiveness, Friendship, Main essay | 1 Comment »The last posting was about the benefits of conflict and why we need to teach kids to resolve conflict constructively themselves. This posting will teach you how to do it. You might be thinking that this is a posting for parents ...
Conflict: It’s a Good Thing
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 Posted in Conflict, Empathy, Forgiveness, Friendship, Main essay, Mindfulness & Meditation, Social intelligence | 2 Comments »“He’s totally conflict avoidant, so it isn’t like we ever fight about this stuff,” my friend recently told me about how she and her hubby address their differences. She seemed proud that the fighting in her household registers ...
Happiness is being socially connected
Friday, October 31st, 2008 Posted in Fostering social connections, Friendship, Main essay | 2 Comments »Network, network, network. Adults in the business world certainly know how important it is to stay connected to their colleagues and peers if they are to have successful careers, but did you know that the number and strength of ...
How to Criticize Your Kids
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 Posted in Main essay, Perfectionism, Success, Success & failure | 5 Comments »I’ve spent a lot of time blogging about how we should praise our kids, but someone asked me the other day if there is a correct way to criticize them. Good question. Here are some ideas, a ...
How much “screen time” is too much?
Monday, September 22nd, 2008 Posted in Main essay, School & scheduling, Screen time | 29 Comments »When I was pregnant with Fiona, my friends, all childless themselves, thought it would be funny to write an advice book for my husband and I. (No one knew that I would, ironically, go on to be someone who ...
7 Ways to Foster Creativity in Your Kids
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 Posted in Growth & fixed mindsets, Main essay, Play & creativity, School & scheduling, Success, Success & failure | 4 Comments »Many people assume that creativity is an inborn talent that their kids either do or do not have: just as all children are not equally intelligent, all children are not equally creative. But actually, creativity is more skill than ...
How to Stop Being a Perfectionist
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 Posted in Growth & fixed mindsets, Main essay, Perfectionism, Success, Success & failure | 4 Comments »If you’ve been reading this series on perfection being a total drag on happiness, and you keep thinking to yourself, crap, I’ve created a perfectionist, and now you’re worried that your daughter is going to end up depressed and stifled ...
How To Make Your Kid into a Perfectionist
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 Posted in Growth & fixed mindsets, Main essay, Perfectionism, Success, Success & failure | 1 Comment »In my last post, I made the case for preventing perfectionism in children, and got a slew of emails from people asking how to prevent perfectionism. Kids today, especially upper-middle class kids, are under a lot of pressure to ...
Perfectionism is a Disease
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 Posted in Growth & fixed mindsets, Main essay, Perfectionism, Success, Success & failure | 7 Comments »Although in my last post I heartily extolled the importance of hard work, I'd like to clarify that I'm not advocating that you push your children to become perfectionists. Perfectionism is not a happiness habit. Maybe it isn't ...
The Science of Success
Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 Posted in Kindness, Main essay, Perfectionism, Success, Success & failure | 3 Comments »Psychologists have established a solid link between happiness and success. Happier people earn more money, perform better, and are more helpful to their coworkers. Most people assume that this link exists because people feel happy when they are ...
This blog is about science-based parenting advice. I'm a sociologist and the executive director of UC Berkeley's 
Appearances on ABC's "View From the Bay."
