http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNz8yASPXoI

source: Contaminated Without Consent

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"Cindy, age 7 in the picture, sister of author"

For this opinion paper, I will be focusing on children’s happiness, from the perspective of positive psychology. I decided on this topic because I am becoming increasingly interested in this field. It is definitely with this perspective that I want to continue my career in psychology. I want to start off by saying that children’s happiness is extremely important. There are numerous theories that talk about how a person’s childhood will predict or influence her future personality. Whether that may be true for most people or not, I know personally that having a predominantly happy or stressful or sad childhood makes a big difference. I have a collection of unpleasant memories from my childhood, and for a long time, it affected my personality and the way I interact with the world.

In positive psychology, there is the recognition of a person’s character strengths. Research done on character strengths shows that the strengths are related to our happiness (Park & Peterson, 2006). There are certain strengths, such as zest, gratitude, hope, and love, also called heart strengths, which have been shown to lead to long-term life satisfaction. Most of positive psychology research has been done on adults and adolescents, so there is not much known about young children’s happiness. However, research that is available is very insightful and shows that certain strengths can show up early in childhood. (Park & Peterson) Park & Peterson cited different examples; one of them is a fifteen-month old boy who gives a teddy bear to comfort his friend who was crying. Another example is that children even at the age of two or three are able to postpone eating good-tasting food when asked to.

This is very interesting for me because I have the sense that the general assumption in society is that children are reckless and all selfishness. However, these examples of children acting beyond their “instant gratification needs” are not too far-fetched for me. Paradoxically, people also believe that children are pure beings. What strikes me as crucial to look into is how children develop these character traits. Because there are children out there who may behave in ways that may be perceived as intolerable or at least very annoying to some people, such as throwing things and tantrums at levels. What makes these children different? Is the key in how the parents teach/discipline the children or how the parents behave themselves?

Park & Peterson (2006) conducted a study on children’s character strengths and their happiness based on the parent’s descriptions of the children. They concluded that all twenty-four strengths identified in positive psychology were found in the descriptions of their children. The strengths that stood out the most were love, curiosity, kindness, creativity, and humor. Overall, these children were described to have the heart strengths, love, zest, and hope. What is interesting is that gratitude was only shown to be connected to happiness for children seven years and up. The explanation is that gratitude required a level of cognitive maturity that younger children have not yet developed. (Park & Peterson)

It is assumed that the love that the child displays is a result of the secure attachment she has with her caretaker (Park & Peterson, 2006). I think this has a very important implication. I guess it would be redundant to say that the child’s parent(s) should love her, yet at the same time, I do believe that parents do not know necessarily how to love their children or what the best way is to show their affection. They might be very strict and clear on boundaries of behavior and call it tough love or they may be overindulgent in the spirit of letting the child develop freely. So I believe that it does take more than just having love for your child to form a healthy attachment. Another strength that I think is related to attachment as well is hope. Hope is described as a result of feeling safe, and it is formed early in life (Park & Peterson).

The researchers also found from their study that there was a higher level of happiness in the only child of the family or the youngest child rather than children in the middle (Park & Peterson, 2006). I would say that it has a lot to do with the attention that the parents are dividing among the children. From my conversations with other people, the message that I hear over and over again was that being the older or oldest child experienced more discipline and rules from parents.

The overall important implication from the study done by Park and Peterson (2006) is that we can help foster the character strengths of children early since they have been shown to be expressed in children at a very early age. I have wondered before writing this opinion paper whether happiness of the parents affect their children’s happiness to the degree that the children will model the happiness or depression level of their parents. In reading the study by Casas et al. (2008), the researchers found some similarities between the child and the parents, which were due to being in the same environment. However, they did not find any evidence that parents’ traits of being happy or not were heritable to children (Casas et al.).

My opinion on this is that the parents’ level of happiness does affect the child. I know from experience as a small child that the mood of my mother often times determined my mood, even if I did not understand what was going on. However, I also think that it is not a deterministic situation that children cannot develop strengths or can be happy even if the caretaker is not.

I think it is important to stress that children’s happiness cannot be forced, just like the happiness of adolescents and adults. However, I think with children, because they tend to want to make their parents happy, they will try to meet certain expectations. The example that came to my mind is with sports and competition. Parents and teachers can be so obsessed with winning that they forget about the experiences of the children. The competitive attitude can be implanted into children very easily and early on, I would know. I think it is a great pity when fun and enjoyment are taken out of children’s activities and replaced with “adult” values.

The concept of Montessori schools is very interesting to me. The whole idea is to have a school environment where children are encouraged to learn rather than making it like a chore. It is designed so that the child’s creativity is exercised with the abundance of toys and the way the classroom is structured. The furniture in the classroom is built for “small people”, so that when they bump into them, the furniture gets nudged. This gives the children a sense that they have an effect on their environment because what they do has a consequence and that their small size is equated with their level of influence. This gets into another topic of alternative education for children. However, I had to mention it because I do see a connection between Montessori school learning and positive psychology’s of children’s character strengths.

As a conclusion, I have to say, as a fan of positive psychology, that there is a lot to discover about children’s happiness and what makes them happy. Of course, this short opinion piece was only a glance at the sneak peak of the surface of it all. I have great hopes that the research done in positive psychology will continue yielding results that will better inform the community about how to foster and nurture the strengths of a child and to create an environment that really is “child-friendly.”

References

Casas, F., Coenders, G., Cummins, R. A., Gonzalez, M., Figuer, C., & Malo, S. (2008). Does subjective well-being show a relationship between parents and their children? Journal of Happiness Studies, 9(2), 197-205.

Park, N. & Peterson, C. (2006). Character strengths and happiness among young children: Content analysis of parental descriptions. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7(3), 323-341.

Related posts:

1. When is the Right Time to Teach Children about Sex?
2. Martin Seligman
3. TED Talks – Martin Seligman on Positive Psychology

Whether parents are willing to talk to their children about sex or not, children will receive certain messages regarding sexuality from their parents (Geasler et al., 1995). When I was growing up, my parents never talked about sex. It was a subject that was treated as bad and forbidden for children. Even though they never told me anything about sex, I received the message that it was not to be talked about (at least not with them). I think that the issue of parents being the sex educators is only secondary to children receiving sex education at all. According to Geasler et al., it is uncommon to have parents who talk to their children about sex. Of course, there are numerous issues when it comes to parents being sex educators, such as their level of knowledge, their willingness to be open to the child, etc.

I personally believe that any form of education begins at home. Instruction from the parents is the start of a child’s education. I am not referring to home schooling the child, but I am talking about the parents motivating the child to learn and creating an environment where knowledge is valued and where the child’s curiosity is encouraged. I think that the same attitudes can be applied to sex education.

Schools often times fail to provide the sex education that children need. It has been shown from research that abstinence teachings are not effective (Sharpe, 2003). In fact, more unwanted teen pregnancies and STI transmissions occur when abstinence is the only source of sex education. I know personally that abstinence teachings are a dead end because they create guilt/shame in wanting to know more and reinforce the notion that sex is a forbidden subject. I think that it is a flawed assumption to think that children or adolescents will be encouraged to engage (and indulge) in sex just by telling them about it. I think that comprehensive and honest discussions with youth on sex and related issues will help them make informed and responsible decisions.

I would not be surprised to know that it is the parents who actually become uncomfortable when talking about sex with their children (Geasler et al., 1995). Parents generally like to believe that their children are pure beings (apart from some fundamental Christians who believe that everyone is basically evil/sinful) and should not be tainted by sexual messages (Frankham, 2006). I think the problem here is that there is the belief that knowing about sex will take away a child’s innocence, as sex is considered dirty. The real concern is when to teach children about sex. There needs to be a balance in the timing so that it is not too early for them to comprehend it yet not too late that they have already learned about it in the wrong contexts (such as from peers or the media, which I think can easily mislead the child with incorrect or inappropriate information).

In Frankham’s (2006) study on how parents conveyed sex knowledge to their children, the parents said that they answered their children’s questions honestly and openly as they came up. The author had a criticism to this approach and said that it was too reactive and not proactive. This may be one perspective, but I believe, like with most issues, it depends on the context when considering how to approach the topic of sex. For example, in the case of a very young child, let us say a four-year-old, I think it is only appropriate for the child’s level of understanding to be only reactive and not proactive about sex education.

I personally know what is it like to know about the process of conception at an age when I was not ready for it. I heard a nutshell version of the conception process from my grandmother. My mind was blown away, and I just did not comprehend how that was possible at all: the penis and the vagina and some eggs. That approach may have been directive, but I do not think that it was done responsibly. I did not know that babies were born through the vaginal canal until I was thirteen. I felt embarrassed at the time that I did not know, yet, looking back, I had never any formal sex education up to that point and not until I was fifteen.

From a personal perspective, it is extremely foolish for the parents and the school curriculum to keep children out of the “sex loop.” In addition, I think that sex education should encompass sexuality issues other than just sex-for-reproduction. Children should also learn about different types of genders, sex and gender roles (my opinion is to teach them to challenge traditional gender hegemonies), responsible sexual practices, and sex for pleasure (including self-pleasure). Of course, the timing of those topics is contextual as well.

My main concern is when the right age is to start the basic level of sex education. There may not be a right answer. I think it depends on the child’s level of maturity and the overall environment. This may be an issue that is up to the parents’ discretion. In the ideal scenario, the parents are the first sex educators in the child’s life; and schools must provide comprehensive sex education as well.

 for a more detailed look –> Let’s Talk About Sex: Discussions with Adolescents on Their Sex Education

References:

Frankham, J. (2006). Sexual antimonies and parent/child sex education: Learning from foreclosure. Sexualities, 9(2), 236-254.

Geasler, M. J., Dannison, L. L., & Edlunk, C. J. (1995). Sexuality education of young children: Parental concerns. Family Relations, 44(2), 184-188.

Sharpe, T. (2003, April). Adolescent sexuality. The Family Journal, 11(2), 210-215.

Related posts:

1. Children’s Happiness
2. Let’s Talk About Sex: Discussions with Adolescents on Their Sex Education