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The secret of really happy kids

1:00am Sunday, 18th July 2010

Michael Jensen

I want to be happy. Don’t you?
I don’t think I am the only one. As the great American philosopher William James (d. 1910) once said: “If we were to ask the question: ‘What is human life’s chief concern?’ one of the answers we should receive would be: ‘It is happiness.’ ”
And now everyone wants school kids to be happy, too. A good friend who is a leading educator told me recently that the latest “thing” in educational philosophy is the idea that education should promote the wellbeing, happiness or resilience—these are the buzzwords—of young people. Victoria’s Geelong Grammar, for example, has recently opened its $16 million Hanbury Centre for Wellbeing. As they explain it on their website: “Parents want schools to teach more than academic achievement. They also want us to cultivate a love of learning, creativity, resilience, optimism, character strengths, and wellbeing in their children.”
It doesn’t take too much time on Google to discover other school websites that advertise the priority of the happiness and wellbeing of their students. For example, one school website declares: “Happy boys are motivated boys and we aim to engage boys from the moment they commence at our school.” Another promises: “We recognise that the individual needs of children are important factors in their development and overall wellbeing”.
It seems that parents and schools are realising that there is more to the education of young people than getting good results so you earn a large amount of money. This hunch is confirmed by the stats: it is becoming increasingly evident to researchers that increased wealth and consumerism are not delivering on their promise of a happier life. But more than that: we are also surfing a wave of deep sadness that won’t go away because we are not preparing our children for the difficulties of life. As a parent myself I certainly want my kids to succeed (who doesn’t?), but not if it means they become emotionally bent out of shape as a result.
The “turn to happiness” in educational circles is grounded on some pretty serious academic thinking. “Resilience” “wellbeing” and “authentic happiness” are all terms associated with the positive psychology movement, which takes its lead from the seminal work of Professor Martin E.P. Seligman, among others. You may have seen his books: Authentic Happiness, Learned Optimism and The Optimistic Child.
Seligman is much more than a day-time chat-show shrink—he is Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Put briefly, his claim is that giving people (and especially children) good self-esteem just isn’t sufficient. We are in the midst, he says, of an epidemic of childhood and adulthood depression. And those who avoid depression are those who develop a more optimistic outlook on life – those who are able to read negative events in their lives not as permanent and catastrophic, but as temporary and surmountable.
Seligman declares that “People want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play. We have the opportunity to create a science and a profession that not only heals psychological damage but also builds strengths to enable people to achieve the best things in life.”
He’s certainly optimistic about optimism!
There is much that Christians might welcome about this new development in education. Here at last is an attempt to counter the sense of entitlement that is so disastrous to our mental health as a community. Here at last is confirmation that Christians have been right all along about the pursuit of wealth and the importance of relationships. A philosophy of life that recognises this and gives people resources to respond to the bad things that happen has to be better than one that doesn’t.
And it is fascinating that the avowedly non-religious Seligman acknowledges that among those people who are the happiest are those who are conservatively religious. Having an awareness of the transcendent and a pattern of life that a religion provides is a real boost to a healthy emotional and mental life—that is what the hard data is saying. Richard Eckersley, from the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at ANU, agrees:
“The evidence shows that a good marriage, the company of friends, rewarding work, sufficient money, a good diet, physical activity, sound sleep, engaging leisure and religious or spiritual belief and practice all enhance our wellbeing, and their absence diminishes it.”
It makes good sense, if you think about it. Materialism in the philosophical sense (i.e. “matter is all there is”) must inevitably lead to the other kind of materialism. If stuff is all there is, then stuff is ultimate. But religious or spiritual faith says that there is another reality beyond the material. By its very nature, this kind of belief draws us away from the terrible worship of things that is making us so unhappy. Here is vindication (as if it were needed) of Jesus’s memorable words: “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (Matt. 6:27)
And it is also the case that Christian belief draws us into communities in which we receive the benefit—or should I say the blessing —of many of the other items that Eckersley lists.
It follows that if the Australian community, and parents especially, are serious about wanting their children to be resilient and happy, then they ought to be pressing for some kind of a religious presence in all schools. And it should not be just the general study of religion as a phenomenon—the sort of study of religion as a type of anthropology. Schools ought to be giving children the opportunity to experience faith from within; to try it on and experience whether it makes a differenceas the studies suggest that it does. Learning how to pray may be as vital to the wellbeing of our children as learning how to play.
But it is fundamental to the Christian sense of resilience, happiness and wellbeing—we call it “hope”—that we know how flawed we are and how helpless to change. That the love of God reaches us despite who we are and not because of who we are is absolutely basic to the Christian outlook. Divine forgiveness is at its heart. The cross of Jesus Christ is its symbol. Christians rest assured on the grounds of a victory won by Christ. James, the brother of Jesus can call on his readers to “consider it pure joy ... when you suffer all kinds of trials” (James 1:2), not because he has some kind of sadistic streak but because of the extraordinary hope that Christians find in the power of God to overcome even our own weaknesses.
I do not see these ideas being linked to the discussion of happiness in educational circles. I have yet to see a school, even a Christian one, which advertises that it will help its students to learn of their own shortcomings and their need for God’s mercy. An honest individual cannot go on being optimistic if the reality of her own sinfulness is crushing her. Meeting this problem is not merely a matter of better counselling either. It’s spiritual. A positive psychology—for all its strengths—cannot find a way to speak about the reality of sin and the greater reality of forgiveness through atonement. Without access to these things it is hard to see how our nation’s secular educators will be able to pass on the kind of happiness of which they seem to be envious.
I want to be happy, and I want my kids to be happy. But I can’t see how they, or I, can be happy without hope.
Dr Michael Jensen teaches at Moore College.