Children have the right to be unhappy
Children have the right to be unhappy I have heard it so many times. “I just want my kids to be happy.” I have thought and said it myself: It would be easy to have happy children if you give them what they want, but they need to learn to deal with unhappiness and disappointment. When we focus so intently on creating happy kids, we are implicitly teaching them that any time they are not happy, life is bad. It is an attitude that offers them ice-cream sundaes to cheer them up when they are sad. It is more toys when they are bored — or hours of TV to keep them entertained. But that only teaches them that lack of happiness can be fixed with ‘stuff’ that comes from the outside. It is important to believe that your job as a parent is not to just make your children happy, it is to keep them healthy, safe and motivated. The hope that we can always keep our children happy leads to a lot of bad parenting, much of it focused on parents who want to be their children’s buddies. Get your ch...