Greater Good

Dear readers,

Holy cow, we've got a lot going on here at the Greater Good Science Center. For starters, we're changing the name of the blog from Half Full: Science for Raising Happy Kids to RAISING HAPPINESS. We're gearing up for a total website re-launch this month, after which I'm going to be posting more frequently. After the re-launch we are going to release a new set of parenting videos and a new podcast called "Happiness Matters" with Rona Renner, host of the radio show Childhood Matters.

Another thing I'm really looking forward to is the new blog software coming with the relaunch, which will allow me to respond to your comments more easily. Thank you so much for all of the great comments and questions lately. I will eventually respond to all of them! Please make sure that you check the little box at the bottom of the comment page so that you are notified when I finally do answer your questions. (Thank you for your patience! Keep commenting!)

Other news:

• Join the Raising Happiness book club. Katy Keim, BookSnob blogger, is leading a discussion of Raising Happiness on Motherese. Grab your book here, as discussion of Chapters 1-3 begins on April 12th. Katy has written my favorite—uh, actually, the only—review of Raising Happiness. The woman knows me (literally: she's my friend) and she reveals why this is one of my favorite quotations: "You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants." —Stephen King
• THANK YOU to all of those who volunteered to work with me for a CBS television segment about family mealtimes. I am now working with one SF East Bay family who rarely eats dinner together; our mission is to have them eating together FIVE nights a week or more! The Rachel Ray Morning Show is also doing a segment Raising Happiness. We'll let you know when these shows air.
• I'm still, somehow, booking more speaking engagements this spring. For example, Evanston, IL folks can now come see me talk on April 26. Until our website relaunches, click here for the most updated list of Raising Happiness talks.
• This blog won a national award! Big thanks to the Council on Contemporary Families, who have given us the award for "Online Coverage of Family Issues." They wrote: "Jurors were impressed by the range of issues, the quality of the writing, and the way the blog resonates with contemporary families, as evidenced by the number and breadth of comments. Above all, the "Half Full" blog is a terrific exemplar of the CCF mission: to disseminate engaging, well-grounded, responsible information about families today." My favorite thing about this award? I get to go to the CCF conference this month, where I'll get the latest on a lot of new research related to our parenting.

A big, heartfelt thanks to all of you, our readers, for participating in this blog! You make it what it is!

Warm regards,

This content is a part of the Raising Happiness e-newsletter, which currently comes out once a month (but we're striving to make it twice a month after the website relaunch in a few weeks). If you don't get the Raising Happiness e-newsletter but would like to, please sign up by clicking here.

© 2010 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

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What's the most important factor for happiness? This is a question I get daily, if not hourly. Here is the answer: friends. And family. Happiness is being socially connected. The best predictor of happiness (and often health) is the quantity and quality of a person's social ties. (And I'm not talking about Facebook here, though I do think that online social networks can provide rich opportunities for real-life connections.) We can teach kids the skills they need to create and maintain lots of strong social connections, and we can rig their environment to make a dense web of relationships possible. The video and post below will give you some ideas about how!

5 Tips for Fostering Friendships

Fostering Social Connections

1. Build a Village. To say it again: there is no stronger predictor of happiness than how robust and positive a child's "village" is, so do what you can to foster relationships with neighbors, teachers, and members of your community. Encourage friendships with kids of all ages, and foster multigenerational friendships between your kids and their older relatives, neighbors, or "elders" in your church.
2. Raise their Emotional Intelligence Through Emotion Coaching. Parents who are effective emotion coaches see their children's emotional expressions—even anger and frustration—as opportunities to connect with and teach their children. This helps kids become more socially and emotionally intelligent, making it easier for kids to foster and maintain friendships. Emotion coaching parents listen empathetically, helping children to explore and validate their feelings. And they don't stop there: they teach their children to verbally label their emotions, and then they set limits ("It is not okay to hit your sister"). For specific steps to becoming a great emotion coach, read this post, including the comments from readers, which I think are very helpful.
3. Teach Constructive Conflict Resolution. Kids don't know how to settle disputes constructively until we teach them, and being able to resolve differences is an important skill to have for friendship. Positive conflict resolution is pretty simple, but it takes practice. Find more information here about how to teach it to kids. Get a printable list of the steps to take when kids are fighting here to post on your fridge. The first step? BREATHE. We don't make effective mediators between fighting kids when we are angry or upset. So unless the action is becoming dangerous, take a second to catch your breath before addressing the situation.
4. Foster Kindness. Your kids' village is built on kindness. Large and small, acts of generosity, compassion, and giving all build social intelligence and strong bonds with others, and they can be forms of happiness in and of themselves. Show kids the many ways that they can give their time and energy to others. How? Create giving traditions (helping others at the same time every year, for example); praise kids for showing empathy and emotional support to others; encourage small acts of kindness; give kids opportunities to teach or mentor others. See this blog post on what we get when we give.
5. Get "Other-Mothers" Involved. One need not be a biological parent to help raise happy kids. As Western households get smaller, parents need other-parents to help "mother" their kids: grandparents, stepparents, aunts, uncles, close friends. It doesn't take much: just taking the time to talk with kids is important (often what kids need most is a good listener). Other-parents can also be an important part of children's lives by teaching them how to do something the other-parent feels passionate about; by helping supervise kids when they are with their friends; by participating in feeding and bathing younger children—even just by running errands with them, as we never know when a quick conversation in the car or grocery store will have a huge impact.

What do you do to foster your kids' friendships and build big villages? It isn't as easy as it used to be, so please be a part of this village and post your ideas for other parents.

On this topic on the Greater Good blog: A review of Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler.

This content is a part of the Raising Happiness e-newsletter, which currently comes out once a month (but we're striving to make it twice a month after the website relaunch in a few weeks). If you don't currently get the Raising Happiness e-newsletter but would like to, please sign up by clicking here.

© 2010 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

Join the Campaign for 100,000 Happier Parents by signing this simple pledge. Become a fan of Raising Happiness on Facebook. Follow Christine Carter on Twitter Subscribe to the Happiness Matters Podcast on iTunes. Sign up for the Raising Happiness CLASS!

People may be born into lucky situations, but they aren't born lucky. Turns out the old aphorism is true: Research shows that people make their own luck. And they do it in a specific way: by adhering to four specific principles. Many lucky people act on these principles without realizing it, but research shows that people can increase their luck by consciously practicing being lucky.

In the next several postings I'm going to explain how lucky people get that way, and how you can teach your kids the skills they need to live lucky lives. (If you question whether that is something they really need in life, read this post). All of this is based on the research and writing of Dr. Richard Wiseman; I recommend his book The Luck Factor.

Teach Kids to Increase Their Odds

Research shows that one of the factors that sets lucky people apart from the unlucky is how they "create, notice, and act upon the chance opportunities in their lives," writes Wiseman. There are three key ways we can increase our odds that something lucky will happen to us, and we can teach them all to our kids.

1. Teach Kids to Make New Friends and Keep the Old.

For starters, lucky people have and maintain a lot of social connections. Most of our lucky opportunities come from other people; it follows that the more people we meet and interact with, the more "luck" we'll have. Here is what lucky people do:

• They are good at building "secure and long-lasting attachments with the people that they meet." I've blogged a lot about how to help kids build social connections (and this will be the topic of the April Raising Happiness newsletter). We can teach kids the skills they need for strong social ties, and we can model it for them both in our relationships with our own kids and with our own social connections.
• Lucky people are magnetic socially—they draw people in around them. Other people find them attractive and inviting largely because of their body language and facial expressions. Lucky people smile twice as much as unlucky people, and they engage in a lot more eye contact. Their body language is warm and open: They keep their arms uncrossed, and they often display open palms. By coaching our kids to be open to people, making eye contact and smiling at them, kids grow more comfortable with this way of interacting with others.
• Lucky people talk to strangers. In a world where we are always coaching our kids not to talk to strangers, we rarely think about how to coach our kids to do so. The trick is in teaching kids when it is safe to talk to new people and when it is not. Safe: new kids at school, new teachers or otherwise clearly-okay grown-ups. Not safe: creepy guy following you home from school. There is a big difference, and kids know this instinctively. Lucky people greet strangers in coffee shops, talk to people in lines, chat with fellow airline passengers. When we model this behavior, our kids pick it up.

All of these things increase the odds that our kids will meet more people, which in turn increase the odds that they will have a lucky chance encounter.

2) Teach Kids to be Open to New Experiences in Life

Lucky people love new things: people, experiences, food, ways of doing things. As every parent with a picky eater knows, kids often crave routine and sameness. But when we introduce variety and change into our routines, we increase the number of chance opportunities in our lives.

We can teach kids to cope with—and eventually embrace—change by teaching them optimism and mindfulness. Fostering their creativity will also help them build this important skill. In today's ever-changing world, clearly the ability to make the most of change is a skill that will serve kids on many fronts!

3) Teach Kids to Relax

It turns out that going through life "happy-go-lucky—in a relaxed, easygoing manner—not only makes us happier, but it makes us luckier. Being relaxed helps us be attuned to opportunities around us.

On the other hand, stress makes us inattentive and unobservant. People who are made anxious in experiments become less able to spot details, even those that are right in front of their noses. When we are relaxed, we are more likely to notice when a lucky opportunity comes our way. My dad has amazing "parking karma"—there always seems to be a parking spot waiting for him right out front. Always. His relaxed nature probably explains this: It isn't that the universe provides him with better parking than others, but that he is relaxed enough to notice it.

In today's fast-paced world, it may prove hard to teach kids to be relaxed, especially if we aren't modeling relaxed behavior ourselves. Use this as an excuse to slow down and practice mindfulness, and teach it to your kids as well.

Thank you for all of your great comments recently! Please let us know how teaching luck is going for you and your children!

© 2010 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

Reference:

Wiseman, Richard (2003). The Luck Factor: The Four Essential Principles. Hyperion: New York.

Join the Campaign for 100,000 Happier Parents by signing this simple pledge. Become a fan of Raising Happiness on Facebook. Follow Christine Carter on Twitter Subscribe to the Happiness Matters Podcast on iTunes. Sign up for the Raising Happiness CLASS!