Psychology-Backed Ways to Help Your Children (And You) Find Happiness
Bite-sized habits for every age—from birth to adulthood.
The children in our lives — whether we’re parents, teachers, relatives, or family friends — rely on us for comfort and guidance.
If we’re lucky, they trust us to share what we know about life, to empathize with them, and to lead them through the maze of growing up.
The stress of school performance, the pain of bullying and ostracism, the awkwardness of adolescence, the challenges of family life; growing up is hard.
Through the frustration, hardship, and adversity that our kids encounter, how can we teach them to find happiness?
The Pursuit of Happiness
For those of us who grew up back in ye olde 20th century, joy was something to be pursued. Those words in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence meant something significant. We were going to pursue happiness.
No one could tell us how to find it, though. Fortunately for the generations who came after us, the movement of human psychology was about to experience a sea change.
A Turn Toward the Positive
In 1998, Martin Seligman was elected president of the American Psychology Association. Building on the work of several psychologists before him, Seligman brought Positive Psychology to the forefront of psychological study, using the scientific method to explore the positive aspects of humanity.
And perhaps the most important of these is our ability to live happy lives.
Thanks to Seligman’s focus on positive psychology during his time with the APA, we’re now beginning to understand happiness a little better — and maybe even starting to chart a bit of a roadmap as the movement gains momentum.
“Happiness can be synthesized,” psychologist Dan Gilbert tells us in his TED talk. And “synthetic happiness is every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you stumble upon when you get exactly what you were aiming for.”
In other words, we make our own happiness, no matter who we are or what we do for a living.
According to Shawn Achor, founder of GoodThink, former Harvard researcher, and “happiness expert,” there’s a phenomenon he calls The Happiness Advantage.
“If I know everything about your external world,” he tells us in his TED Talk, “I can only predict 10% of your long-term happiness. 90% of your long-term happiness is predicted by the way your brain processes the world.”
One way most of us have been trained to process the world is through goal-setting.
This thought pattern is probably familiar to you:
- If I get the job, I’ll be happy
- If I get a raise, I’ll be happy
- If I find a partner, I’ll be happy
- If we get married, I’ll be happy
- If we have a baby, I’ll be happy
Similarly, our children might think:
- If I get on the soccer team, I’ll be happy
- If I get a Hydro Flask, I’ll be happy
- If my parents stay together, I’ll be happy
- If I get an “A” this semester, I’ll be happy
- If my IG post gets 100 likes, I’ll be happy
- If I lose five pounds, I’ll be happy
- If I get my own bedroom, I’ll be happy
But that’s not how it works.
Anyone who’s ever achieved a goal, only to turn around and set a new, harder one, knows that feeling. Goals are moving targets (from job to raise to promotion), so as Achor shares, “If happiness is on the other side of ‘success,’ your brain never gets there.”
This goal-oriented business also has another major flaw: by telling ourselves “I’ll be happy when…”, we’re relying on an external experience to provide our happiness for us.
Instead, happiness is like a muscle that needs to be exercised and strengthened.
You can train your brain to perceive happiness, and once it does, it improves all aspects of your life.
Achor describes The Happiness Advantage phenomenon like this:
Your brain at “positive” performs significantly better than it does at “negative,” “neutral,” or “stressed.” Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise… Your brain at “positive” is 31% more productive than your brain at “negative,” “neutral,” or “stressed.”
Obviously, with the benefits of increased intelligence, creativity, energy, and productivity, we want to teach our children to strengthen their “happiness muscles.”
But how do we do that?
Build Your Own Happiness
According to Achor, there are five daily action steps that we can take to reframe our perspective and turn on our “positive” brain.
Once engaged, our positive brain learns to habitually look for positive patterns in our lives, seek out moments of positivity, and see the world through a lens of happiness.
Jeff Olson talks about Achor’s five daily actions in his book The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness. He describes them as “simple, fairly mundane, repetitive tasks that are easy to do, and to do again, day after day.”
My hope is that we can help our children develop a habit of happiness.
We can develop this habit, Achor argues, by training our brains to seek out the positive in the world around them, even when it can be hard to find.
Achor’s discussion is formatted as though the five daily actions are a grown-up thing — and they definitely can be!
I believe that the five daily actions of happiness are just as critical for kids as they are for adults. In this article, I’ve outlined each of Achor’s five daily actions and detailed a strategy you might use to apply that action for your child.
I’ve included one strategy for each of the following age ranges:
- Babies & toddlers
- Preschool & kindergarten
- Early elementary school (grades 1–3)
- Late elementary school (grades 4–5)
- Adolescence (grades 6+)
Every child is different, so find the activity that makes sense for your child at their stage of life.
You might try one and move quickly on to another. Or you might land on one that works right away. If your child is older, feel free to scroll down to the section that best corresponds to their age group.
If you’d like to apply these steps to your own life, follow the guides for grades 6 and up. Yes, your own activities would be similar to a 12-year-old’s. That’s how simple this system for increased happiness is.
Action Step #1: Create a gratitude journal
This can be a one-minute activity, a two-minute activity, a five-minute activity, or more, depending on the needs of your child and your family. The point is to think about three things — anything — that you feel thankful for.
Discussing and recording daily feelings of gratitude trains your brain to be on the lookout for positive moments and experiences in your daily life.
This habit stimulates the reticular activating system, our brain’s pattern generator.
It’s the part of our brain that hears a friend mention a great new song — and then, seemingly out of nowhere, it’s always on the radio, the person next to you on the bus is humming it, and it’s playing through the sound system at the grocery store.
So when we tell our reticular activating system that good things are in our lives, we notice more good things.
And more, and more, and more. Here’s how to get started.
Babies and Toddlers
Throughout the day, talk to your child about the things you feel grateful for. It doesn’t have to be a big “conversation” each time.
Just mentioning gratitude (in the same way you might point out a furry squirrel, a crunchy leaf, or a fast car), will help your child grow to understand that just like squirrels, leaves, and cars, happiness and gratitude are part of their everyday life.
- “Isn’t it nice that the sun is so bright today? I feel so warm when I’m in the sunshine. I love feeling warm from the sun.”
- “Mmm. These eggs are so tasty. You and I both like eggs. I’m grateful we can have eggs for breakfast today.”
- “It’s so fun that we get to spend time at the playground with Emma today! I’m excited and happy to play with Emma and her dad.”
Preschool and Kindergarten
Each day, take a few minutes to share three things you’re grateful for, and help your child think of three good things in their lives, too.
Think about simple experiences and concepts like the sunshine, a warm coat, puddles on the playground, breakfast food, or a classroom reading corner.
The car ride to school or home from school can be an excellent time for this conversation. Eventually, as your child gets older, you can focus on new gratitudes each day, but in preschool and kindergarten, there will probably be a lot of repeats.
That’s okay! For now, it’s all about:
- Recognizing that there are simple parts of our lives that make us feel good, and
- Getting in the habit of acknowledging them each day
You can begin to keep a journal with your child at this stage or you can simply focus on the conversation itself.
A book of your preschooler’s daily gratitudes would make a sweet keepsake later, but if it’s overwhelming, it’s okay to skip it! Remember this is about increasing happiness — not increasing stress.
If you do want to give a journal a try, here’s what I suggest:
- For each gratitude point your preschooler or kindergartener shares, draw an image that might represent it: a book for “the reading corner,” for example, or a cloud and raindrops for “puddles.”
- Write the word on the page, too, so you can all be reminded of the good things your child thought about throughout the week, the month, and the whole year. Later, you and your child can read their journal together!
First Through Third Grade
Once your child is comfortable writing, they can take control of their own journaling.
Each day, they can draw their own picture that represents the thing they’re grateful for, and add a word or two to describe it.
When they first get started, it might work best for them to choose just one of their three gratitudes to draw and write in their journal, but this will vary from child to child (as all things do).
Sometimes, kids might struggle because it’s simply a hard day to think of nice things. We’ve all had those days. Try to help your child brainstorm. What was the morning like? Did you notice anything about their time after school that might be helpful?
Even simple elements of life like what they had for snack, getting to go outside for recess, or wearing a comfy piece of clothing are good to mention.
Gratitudes don’t have to be big or out-of-the-ordinary. It’s kind of the point to start noticing the small good things that we see in our everyday lives.
Of course, it’s great to celebrate big things, too! But we don’t need to go to a birthday party or on a field trip or get money from the tooth fairy just to feel grateful. We can feel thankful for fuzzy socks, our cat’s gentle purr, or having spaghetti at dinnertime, too.
When your child is having a rough time, remind them that sometimes thinking about positive things can help us feel better.
They might be grumpy or respond negatively to the exercise some days, but it’s important to normalize and validate those feelings. Sometimes, we just feel grumpy, and it stinks.
Encourage your child to think of one different gratitude each day. But if they get stuck, it’s better to be grateful for Cheetos five days in a row than for nothing at all.
Fourth and Fifth Grade
In late elementary school, advance from a quick label to a full-sentence description for each of their three gratitudes.
It’s helpful to identify the thing they’re grateful for and the “why.” For instance, “I’m grateful for Sonya because she sat with me on the bus this morning, so I had someone to talk to” or “I’m grateful for Tuesdays because it’s taco day at lunch and I love tacos.”
Sixth Grade and Up
Tweens and teens can continue writing a one-sentence description of each of their gratitudes.
As with 4th and 5th graders, tweens and teens should address the concept that’s being acknowledged as well describe why they’re grateful for it. They might write something like, “I’m grateful I don’t have any work to bring home tonight because it will give me more time to catch up on the game I’ve been playing.”
At this age, encourage your kids to think of three unique ideas each day. They can set a goal of no repeats for the whole semester, year, or longer.
Action Step #2: Recall, in detail, something positive that happened in the last 24 hours
This activity helps kids recognize little moments that can have a big impact.
Journaling about a positive experience each day trains our brain to relive those positive moments, leave the others in the past, and expect good things in the future.
It helps us move forward rather than dwelling on negativity.
Babies and Toddlers
As with the gratitude exercise, at this age, it’s all about normalizing positive conversation by modelling.
Throughout the day, share your memories of the happy experiences you had yesterday.
Your happy memories don’t have to involve your baby, but they can! Talking about the good news you got from your boss might not mean much to an infant or a toddler, but your tone and facial expressions will.
Preschool and Kindergarten
Make a habit of “sharing time.”
Try to do it at more or less the same time each day, like at breakfast, dinner, or bedtime — whichever is usually less hectic! Set a timer and give your child 60 or 90 seconds to tell a story about something that made them happy yesterday (if it’s early in the day) or today (if your sharing time is later in the day).
If you’re doing a morning share, keep in mind that “yesterday” was a long time ago for young kids!
If they need help, remind them of something you did together. Maybe they want to talk about that!
Sometimes, your child may barely have a sentence to share — and that’s okay! Right now, it’s just about looking for the positive and revisiting the memory that gives them good feelings. Until the timer goes off, you can ask them questions about their share, but wait until the timer goes off to move on to the next family member’s share (or the next topic of conversation).
First Through Third Grade
As schedules get busier and kids become tweens, it can be hard to schedule a consistent share time — and even harder to get your children to share their ideas!
At this age, children can transition to sharing their happy memory in their gratitude journal.
In addition to their three short gratitudes, ask your child to think of something that made them happy yesterday.
Then, they’ll write a list of ten words that remind them of that happy memory.
For example, if your child’s happy memory is: “I had tacos for lunch because it was Taco Tuesday,” they might write down “taco, shell, lettuce, plate, cheese, beans, Tuesday, good, lunch, cookie.”
If they have time, and they like to draw, they can draw a picture to go with their list.
Fourth and Fifth Grade
In late elementary school, your child can write their happy memory in narrative form, with a beginning, middle, and end.Encourage them to think about the five senses and about emotions.
What did they see? Smell? Hear? Touch? Taste? And how did the experience make them feel? Encourage them to identify three emotions that they experienced during their story.
Sixth Grade and Up
Encourage your child to be as specific as they can. Their memory might take five or more sentences.
Challenge them to dig deep into their memory as they write their story: recall the details of the environment, the expressions and dialogue of the other “characters,” and pay attention to the arc of the story.
Did it end as a reader might expect it to? Or was there a twist?
Action Step #3: Get moving
For all age groups, make time for at least 15 minutes of physical activity at some point after school.
This might be a structured sports practice, outside playtime, or a daily “dance party” in the living room. Kids don’t move enough at school, and physical activity is critical for their mental health.
Action Step #4: Take two minutes to focus on breathing
Paying attention to our breath forces us to slow our brains and our bodies down.
In just two minutes of focused breathing, Achor says, happiness increases and stress decreases. And what’s even more remarkable is that in that same time, “the stress of the people around [the test subjects] dropped as well. It starts to cause this chain reaction.”
A two-minute breathing exercise also increases our ability to focus, which can be beneficial for your child in the classroom. In that respect, making time for two minutes of breathing before school can increase classroom productivity in a big way.
Babies and Toddlers
Model deep breathing throughout the day, especially when things get stressful.
Talk about what you’re doing and why.
Acknowledge to your baby when you feel frustrated, angry, or upset. Name your emotion.
Explain that it sometimes helps you to fill up your body with air, like a balloon, and then to slowly push all of the air back out of your body and into the world.
Speaking calmly and warmly about deep breathing can help your baby understand that you are calm, even if they don’t know the words or concepts yet.
For instance: “Sometimes it can be stressful to drive in the car like this. I’m going to take a few deep breaths . . . now I feel more relaxed!”
As they grow, toddlers will start being able to mimic your breathing and to practice breathing exercises like this simple, calming activity.
Preschool and Kindergarten
Even the littlest of our school-age kids can benefit from mindfulness exercises like focused breathing.
A simple “quiet time,” with 2–3 minutes of calm music and reminders to breathe in and out can refresh young kids’ bodies and brains and help them focus on what comes next in their day.
It’s important to remember that kids aren’t going to be open to this kind of activity all the time. And that’s okay. Keep at it. Even if your child refuses to participate in the breathing, encourage them to sit quietly with you for the two minutes.
You can set a timer so they know when it’s time to get going again. When the timer goes off, model the calm and happiness you want them to feel — even if you don’t quite feel like it, after sitting for two minutes with a grumpy preschooler!
If each time you finish the activity, you smile and tell them know how much better you feel, it will subconsciously add up for them, and they might decide to join you more fully in the future.
First Through Third Grade
Young elementary schoolers can benefit from a more structured breathing practice.
Ask your child to sit cross-legged on the floor or to lie down on their back (I always do better lying down than sitting crosslegged!).
With the lights off, guide your child to slow their breath by breathing in through their nose for four seconds, holding their breath for four seconds, and then breathing out through their mouths for four seconds.
Repeat for 2–3 minutes, and then let the children quietly return to their seated positions before turning the lights back on and moving on to the next part of your day.
Fourth and Fifth Grade
At this age, it’ll be necessary to share why mindfulness exercises are essential.
Let them know it might feel silly or awkward, and that it’s okay to feel that way. Remind them of the “why”s. Use an app like Calm to guide you and your child through a short activity.
When the activity is over, share how you felt about it.
What did you notice physically? Did you get bored? What did you struggle with? How do you feel now? Encourage your child to share their thoughts as well.
Sixth Grade and Up
By middle and high school, your child might have a preference of how they spend their mindfulness time.
They might like to use a recording on their own, have you practice with them, or simply close their eyes for a quiet couple of minutes.
Action Step #5: Commit to conscious acts of kindness
Being kind “shows us is how much power we have,” Achor shared in a Super Soul Sunday interview with Oprah. It opens our eyes to the idea that we can “actually change the reality of what we see around us.”
Babies and Toddlers
Live your own life kindly.
Model acts of kindness and talk to your baby about the kind choices you make each day. When someone does something nice for you, tell your child what happened.
“That woman saw my hands were full, so she held the door for me. Wasn’t that nice of her? It made me feel thankful she was there!”
Preschool and Kindergarten
Pick a “target” each week.
Maybe it’s someone at school, like an administrative assistant or a teacher. Perhaps it’s a community member, like a post office worker, a neighbour, or a checker at the grocery store who stood out for one reason or another.
With your child, decide to do something nice for your “target”, like:
- Write a thank-you note
- Give them a compliment written in a card
- Do a favour, like pushing the loose carts at the grocery store into the corral (you might need another adult or older child’s help to do this one!)
Make the task a physical one. For example, you and your child both sign the thank-you note or the card and your child delivers it. By having the child complete a task, you enable them to experience the act of kindness more fully.
Afterwards, talk about the experience. How did the person seem to feel? How did your child feel while they were doing a nice thing? How do they feel now?
Sometimes the person on the receiving end might have an unexpected reaction, or might not be aware that an action took place (like pushing in the carts). How does your child feel when that happens? Does someone not noticing mean that we shouldn’t do nice things for people?
As your child gets older, the focus can shift away from physically acting to a simple thank-you text or email, but young kids will benefit from a “bigger” action that they can see, feel, and hear.
First Through Third Grade
Ask your child for suggestions.
Who might they do something nice for next week? What sort of gesture might make that person feel good about themselves?
Fourth and Fifth Grade
This is an excellent time to transition from more physical acts to a simple note of praise or thanks.
Ask your child to write one thank-you note or a note of praise to one person each week. They can write to a friend, a teacher, someone from church, a community member, or even a public figure that’s made an impact on them.
Talk with them about who they choose each week and what they’ve written (if they want to share.)
And most importantly, participate with them to model the behaviour! Who will you write to?
Sixth Grade and Up
Encourage your child to send a thank-you or a bit of praise by email, text, or a written note to a different person every day.
This task can take two minutes or less! They can keep a record of their daily act of kindness in their gratitude journal.
That way, they can review those positive moments (and practically, their journal entries will keep them from losing track and sending the same note twice).
Sustaining Happiness
These five little habits will compound when practiced daily, according to Achor.
“It’s not the macro things that matter,” he reminds us, “but it’s the micro choices for happiness that actually sustain happiness the best.”
And it takes less than 30 minutes a day.
Two minutes to jot down gratitudes. Two minutes to describe a positive moment from the last 24 hours. Fifteen minutes of physical activity. Two minutes to breathe. And two minutes to send a note of praise.
30 minutes a day seems like a small price to pay for happiness.
If we start now, teaching these small habits to our kids early on, they’re far more likely to continue practicing them through adolescence and adulthood.
We want our kids to be happy. (Not that it needs a source, but someone did a survey on it.) Don’t we owe them — and ourselves — these small steps to happiness?
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