Happy children have developed a certain pattern of thinking
Are some of us born happy? It's a question that intrigues Elizabeth Gould, who readily admits she is a glass half-full kind of person.
Gould has written about eight ''happy'' children, aged nine to 13, to see what makes them tick. By ''happy'' children she means children who have ''a spring in their step, a glow about them, a sense of excitement these are children who are doing a lot more with their lives than going through the motions.'' We have all seen them children who, no matter what happens to them, look permanently happy.
In the introduction to Happy children: Secrets of how they think, she writes: ''So much parent advice and books on children are written from a basis of fixing what is wrong, not celebrating what is right.'
'She says we are bombarded by bad news about children with problems, children on drugs, children living on the streets. ''There is never any good news about children who are working hard, love their grandma, love their hamster.''
And while the shelves are filled with books written by psychologists who see children who need help, how are the children who don't need help going?
The boys and girls featured in Happy children: Secrets of how they think come from a range of backgrounds: they have different family structures, go to private and government schools, have different birth orders, are not all extroverts, and have working and non-working parents.
They chatted to Gould about their families, friends, school, their bodies, pets and hobbies, growing up, things that scare them, and being a child. It's their view of the world Gould says it's a book about ''what happy children really think, not what adults assume happy children think about''. One of the events which inspired the book was an experience that happened to her as an adult, and led to her previous book Secrets of Cancer Survivors.
Four years ago Gould was bashed and raped in her home in front of her two small children. She was then diagnosed with breast cancer, had a mastectomy and chemotherapy, and is now free of cancer.
Despite what happened to her, she considers herself to be a lucky person. She had assumed her resilience had been learned, but what if she had decided she was ''lucky as a child, had chosen to be happy and it was this that got me through just as much as all the tools I acquired as an adult?'' Gould says the key messages to come out of her research are that: Happy children come from many different backgrounds and family structures. Happy children have had their share of bullying, disappointments and upheaval whether at home or at school. Happy children have developed a certain pattern of thinking and are able to choose the type of life they want to lead.
''Whether the family was large or small, biological, adopted, step-parented, single parent or two parents, made no difference to the level of happiness the book children felt or thought.'' She says while the family was a big influence, how it was constructed wasn't important to the children.
Gould says while we have all known people who just seem to be happy they just seem to have a happy personality the interesting thing about the children in her book is that they chose to be happy, and to stay happy, no matter what. And because of that, they felt empowered.
She found that despite their different ages and backgrounds, all of the children had a certain pattern of thinking, which included: Choice. Being happy is a choice, and it is a choice the children made. But she also discovered it wasn't only how the children chose to think, but what they chose not to think about. If anything upset them, or an issue was outside their control, they chose not to think about it.
Cube thinking. They were able to see things from different angles. They did not use words like ''should'' but had a realistic view of life. ''This is what I have been dealt, this is how I am going to deal with it.'' She cites a girl who was bullied and who, as well as being able to talk through her experience, was also able to talk about how the bully might have felt. The children were able to think in shades of grey, not just black and white.
A belief that making mistakes was okay. She found that the children had ''partly themselves and partly through those around them, decided it was better to be happy and formulated a way of thinking that became a habit. In the end, they decide to be happy because it worked for them.'' What has writing the book taught her as a parent? ''I had forgotten how much children do think. I am now less inclined to offer advice first with my own children. Instead, I will ask, 'What do you think?' and nine times out of 10 they are spot-on. Children see and think very clearly.'' She urges parents to praise their children for what they think and their decisions, not just for physical achievements.
Gould says if she has been surprised by anything it is the negative biases adults often have against children illustrated by comments such as ''All children are happy because they don't have to pay the bills.'' She also wonders whether ''we carry happiness with us through our lives or do we unlearn it''.
She says as adults many of us have an if/when attitude to happiness: we will be happy if/when we get that new job/car/house, pair of shoes. With adults happiness has become an event-based attitude, whereas this was not the case with the happy children.
- The Canberra Times
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