CHAPTER 5

Ingredients of a Life Worth Living

Molleen Matsumura

Okay. We humanists agree that there is no karmic law, no Grand Plan, and no Grand Planner to make the world make sense for us. Instead of discovering “The Meaning of Life,” we’re faced with the job of creating meaningful lives for ourselves. We also agree that happiness is to be found here and now, not in some imaginary hereafter.

But, how do we prepare our kids to do the same for themselves? This question may seem even more challenging for those of us who have set aside the religious views of our parents (especially if they were dogmatic), or who are determined not to “brainwash” our kids. None of us is satisfied with automatic answers, and we know we can’t wave a magic wand over our kids and order them to “be happy.”

It helps to remember that anyone of parenting age—or, for that matter, grandparenting age—is still living an unfinished story, whose meaning changes with new experiences. And that’s the key. We don’t have to do the impossible and give our kids all the answers to life’s questions. Instead, we can join them in the adventure of meaningful living and help them develop the emotional and intellectual skills that make for a full life.

Just as humanists recognize that there is no one true meaning of life, the same is true for definitions of happiness. There are different sources of happiness; for any one person, some types of happiness are more meaningful and more attainable than others. But we can draw upon accumulated human wisdom for ideas that will resonate with our own and our children’s experiences. Even a casual search through quotations about happiness will reveal some common themes. People define happiness as:

“There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.”

—Anais Nin, novelist

These same themes emerge from research in the field of positive psychology, which has developed a tremendous amount of information on what makes people feel that life is worthwhile.⁷ This chapter will include some core ideas you can apply right away, followed up by resources you can use to build on your own experiences. And, since there is more information than can be covered in one book, let alone one chapter, it will emphasize issues that particularly concern humanist parents.

One idea I will borrow from researchers is that it is useful to understand and cultivate many different components of a satisfying life.

Questions and Answers

Q:  Aren’t some people naturally more cheerful than others? What can a parent be expected to do about natural temperament?

A:  Yes, there is evidence that some people are born more cheerful or optimistic. This isn’t surprising, considering that body chemistry affects our moods. But … well, there are two big “buts”:

First, it isn’t easy to take into account all the factors affecting a person’s mood. For example, if one of your kids tends to get whiny just before dinnertime, that doesn’t necessarily mean he is your grouchiest child. It could be that this child’s moods are more affected by hunger. Another example would be a child who is more easily frustrated by certain kinds of tasks, presenting her parents with the challenges of recognizing that what looks like bad temper is really frustration, then figuring out what it is that frustrates her and how to help her cope.

Second, having a less cheerful temperament doesn’t automatically condemn people to unhappy lives. They can learn to maximize their capacity for enjoyment and find other sources of life satisfaction that are based on their particular strengths, and their parents can help them learn how to do so. For example, a child who is always curious and asks lots of questions may find fulfillment as a scientist or explorer. The caring, generous child may grow into a passionate advocate for social justice.

“Meaning is not what you start with, but what you end up with.”

—Peter Elbow, writer

Q:  The search for meaning is often depicted as some grand experience—six months in a cave, climbing a mountain, crossing a desert in your bare feet. How can simpler, more ordinary pleasures contribute to a meaningful life?

A:  On a December day twenty-odd years ago, my 3-year-old and I made a gumdrop wreath. Chatting and laughing as we used toothpicks to attach the gumdrops to a circular base, we tasted each color.

When we were almost done, she sighed and said dreamily, “Life is good!”

This simple pleasure was more complicated than it seems at first glance. We had fun fitting different-sized gumdrops onto the base like pieces of a puzzle, and there was a warm undercurrent of affection as we worked together.

But the sensory pleasure was certainly important, and that wasn’t entirely simple, either: Quickly gobbling ten gum drops of any one flavor wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun as stretching out the experience, slowly nibbling at and comparing the different flavors. Without planning to, I gave my daughter an important lesson in savoring a simple pleasure. It was an example of the proverbial advice to linger and smell the roses.

Q:  We hear a lot of complaints (some of them valid) about too much hedonism and materialism in everyday life, but there is also a strong puritanical streak in our culture that distrusts pleasure. Just think about the phrase “sinfully delicious.” How can I protect my kids from picking up this same puritanical streak?

A:  One way or another, we’ve all heard these messages. Let’s look at some examples:

Q:  What is “flow,” and how does it contribute to a worthwhile life?

A:  Flow is a state of being we’ve all experienced, although many of us don’t necessarily have a name for it, or know what has been learned about it in scientific studies. By identifying positive emotions in categories more specific than “happiness” and investigating which of these emotions people experience during various activities, researchers have characterized the type of experience called “flow.” Some familiar examples from daily life will make it easier to grasp a description of what “flow” is:

•   A musician rehearsing just before a concert.

•   A toddler focused on learning to walk.

•   A novelist who is “on a roll.”

•   A hobbyist concentrating on putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

•   Friends lost in intense conversation.

Flow is not as simple as “being happy.” It is about being present in the moment, thinking neither of past nor future, attending fully to the activity at hand. Someone who is simply happy may be very relaxed, while flow involves concentration.

During flow, a person is completely focused on the chosen activity, so he’s not distracted by background activities like traffic noise or rain falling on him as he walks. He often loses track of time. When you look up from an absorbing project or a long conversation and wonder,“Where did the time go?” you’ve just been in flow.

Like happiness, flow is an experience that people seek for its own sake. A flow experience starts with an activity that a person considers worthwhile; it may not be very long-lasting or completely voluntary, it may even be something she feels obligated to do, but it is not being done only because there’s nothing better to do. A flow experience, in other words, is something we do because we value it, not just to “kill time.”

Finding flow also involves finding just the right balance between an activity that is not so easy it’s boring, but not so hard that it’s frustrating. When you’ve found the balance, and an activity is challenging enough to call into play all of one’s relevant skills—and maybe also bring about some improvement or learning—the flow experience is most likely to occur.⁸

Q:  I see what you mean by “flow”—but how does this relate to parenting?

A:  Since flow experiences are some of the most meaningful we can have, parents can help their children have a deeper experience of life by helping them find and engage in flow. And one of the most common enemies of flow is something over which parents have a good deal of control—schedules.

“Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.”

—Chuang Tzu, Chinese philosopher (389–286 BC)`

Just when an activity is getting really interesting and the flow experience begins to take hold, it’s time to set the table, leave for preschool, go to gymnastics. Your own time pressures can make it difficult to see that your child isn’t necessarily just being stubborn when she doesn’t want to be interrupted. It can also be challenging to set aside appropriate and adequate times for extended concentration to be possible.

Not all activities that offer the flow experience are meaningful and enriching. Take computer games. You can see why some are so attractive: They offer clear goals, immediate feedback, and a choice of skill levels so the game stays “just hard enough.” But the skills involved are often useless outside the world of the game. There’s nothing wrong with that by itself, of course. The same could be said of many other recreational activities. The key is to not allow these less enriching activities to overwhelm and push out the deeper, more meaningful opportunities for flow.

Helping your child have flow experiences that are both inherently satisfying and enhancing other aspects of life will depend on identifying his or her particular abilities. Practice is a good thing, but practicing hard at a particular activity, such as playing the piano or playing basketball, will be more worthwhile to some kids than others. It takes careful observation to know whether a child really needs to try a little harder or needs to try something different.

Q:  How can we give our kids meaningful encouragement in ways that promotes their growth, identity, and learning?

A:  Once when I was young and inexperienced (that’s my excuse), I watched a toddler practice walking. When he had walked some distance without grabbing any furniture, I clapped and cheered. More walking—more cheering. After a while, he looked back over his shoulder, smiling and waiting for me to cheer … and toppled backwards. That incident is a perfect illustration of how not to encourage your child’s learning and growth.

“Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.”

—Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Laureate

Kids are born ready to learn. A toddler is driven to learn to walk. No coaxing or cheering is needed—just some furniture to grab or an adult hand to hang onto. After a fall, a baby may cry or need some comforting—then begin again. The next day, no baby asks, “But what if I fall?” He just keeps practicing until he’s learned to walk, then takes on another challenge—maybe stair-climbing.

The learning process sounds much like a recipe for flow in that it takes concentration and stretches one’s previous limits. When a learner has chosen her goal, or at least understands its value, learning may indeed lead to flow and be loved for its own sake—as well as helping kids acquire skills they value. Yet unfortunately, older children often seem less enthusiastic about learning.

Some aspects of that problem are outside our control—but not outside our influence. Some of our children’s friends may dampen their enthusiasm for learning. We can try to support friendships with children who share excitement about learning, although sometimes we have to stand back and let kids solve this problem themselves as they mature.

Also, we can help our kids make the best of school and extracurricular experiences, which, frankly, are sometimes disappointing. For example, we can explain to kids the value of studying topics whose importance is not obvious to them or help them get along with a perfectionist teacher or coach.

Luckily, the most important thing we can do is within our control: We can nurture what has come to be known as a “growth mindset.” Researchers and parenting advisors contrast “growth mindsets” with “fixed mindsets.” If you have a fixed mindset, you think of your abilities as unchanging and may be unwilling to try new learning experiences. With a growth mindset, you believe you can increase your abilities with effort and are willing to risk setbacks as part of learning.

Some experiments studying mindsets involved giving different types of praise to two groups of children who had succeeded in the same task. Some children were told, “You must be very smart,” while another group was told, “You must have tried very hard.” The second group was significantly more willing than the first to try a new task that they were told would be more challenging and that they might learn something while trying to solve it.⁹

What such research has shown is that well-meaning comments that describe kids in fixed terms, such as,“You’re smart,” or,“You’re a natural athlete,” can actually have negative results: A child may fear that if he fails, he won’t be valued as “a smart kid”; or she may feel something like, “I impressed them this time, but what happens when they find out I’m not really much of an athlete?”

In a family atmosphere that supports learning, parents praise the willingness to make necessary efforts. They recognize achievements while making clear that their affection is not contingent on success. They try new activities with their children as well as sharing familiar pleasures and talk frankly about what they have learned from their own mistakes.

Q:  One aspect of parenting that continues to amaze and challenge me is how different my children are from each other. How can I recognize and encourage their individual strengths?

A:  A friend of mine was being visited by her son for a few days, during which he offered to help her shop for a new car. By the end of the visit, she was still undecided about even what make of car she wanted. He was impatient, feeling that they had spent plenty of time on a relatively easy decision. She thought she needed more information before making a major purchase. “I think he was irritated with me,” she commented.

What’s interesting about this story is that both these people are health professionals. The mother began her career as a rehabilitation nurse and now is a project manager developing health education programs. Her first job required much patience and sensitivity to tiny signs of progress. For the current job she needs to amass enough accurate information to justify launching a project, and she has to think through everything that might come up during its implementation. Her son is an emergency room physician—he has to collect the right information quickly, often without enough time to collect all the information he would like to have before making life-and-death decisions. Their tension over how to reach a decision grew from different personal strengths that serve each of them well. They are both fortunate to have found circumstances where they can take advantage of their respective strengths—circumstances that are likely to lead to an increased daily experience of flow.

The understanding of character strengths and how to nurture them is an active field of research. A “character strength” is a personal attitude or pattern of behavior that helps get through life in a constructive, satisfying way. Many researchers in this area focus on twenty-four strengths that are quite varied; for example, the VIA [Values in Action] Classification of Character Strengths and Virtues includes persistence, kindness, gratitude, and humor.¹⁰

These strengths are not unchanging characteristics; while each person will tend to be stronger in certain areas, we can increase a strength if we choose to make the effort. And, we may change over time: One study found that, on average, adolescents and adults show different strengths.¹¹

It is important for parents using these ideas to understand that

While it can’t be said that that one strength is “better” than another, there are studies suggesting that some strengths are more strongly correlated with life satisfaction.^13,14

Understanding their children’s strengths can help parents in a number of ways:

•   By giving us a different lens on children’s behavior. For example, a child who seems to be dawdling on the way to school, or while on an errand with you, might be slowing down to notice the silvery trails that snails leave on leaves, exhibiting curiosity by wondering how they got there, or appreciation by simply admiring their beauty.

•   By helping us encourage our children to use their strengths, which is both intrinsically enjoyable and a source of positive outcomes. (For example, doing science experiments with your child encourages curiosity and critical thinking and broadens her knowledge of the natural world.)

•   By helping us see when apparent “faults” are actually strengths that need to be moderated or re-channeled. For example,“stubbornness” can be persistence that needs to be re-channeled into finding a different way to reach a goal.

•   By giving us a way to help our children think about interpersonal differences.

•   By giving families a way to deepen their bonds while engaging in activities that increase various strengths. (I encourage looking for ways for the entire family to engage in such activities; you avoid the risk of seeming to disapprove of your child when pointing out areas that could be strengthened. When the whole family works together, the message is that we all have room to grow.)

Q:  As my children move into their teen years, I find myself worrying about the growing influence of their peers. How can I best understand this transition?

A:  We are social animals. Thousands of pages have been written about what that means for all aspects of our lives. And much of what we know—for example, how important it is that children be securely attached to their caregivers—is true for all families, regardless of their beliefs. Rather than repeat universally relevant information, I want to talk about something that is especially significant for humanist parents.

Parents hope that their children will choose appropriate friends who are a positive influence. At the same time, here in the United States at least, when kids reach their early teens, parents become especially worried about “peer pressure.” Parents also worry about the “cliquishness” of teenage social groups. The special twist for freethinking parents is that we are probably more concerned than average about independent thinking and the ability to “go against the crowd.”

Concerns about conformity look different when you think about what adult friendships are like. Even those of us who enjoy meeting and learning from people who are different from ourselves have a special place in our lives for friends who are similar to us. For example, atheists frequently express their desire to meet “like-minded” people. In the best friendships, not only do we feel more comfortable around like-minded people, we know we can count on them to give advice (when needed) that’s in accordance with our values, to challenge us to live up to our standards, to understand our moods without detailed explanations. We also understand that there are different levels of friendship. For example, your golf buddy may or may not be someone you’d talk with about emotional problems.

It’s not so different for our teens. They want the same things, just more intensely.¹⁵ Our teens are learning how to choose truly compatible friends, how to maintain friendships, how to recognize the obligations and limits of loyalty. Acquiring these skills is an important part of their transition to adulthood. It’s also important to their growing independence from their parents. We won’t be around forever to provide advice and emotional support. Our kids need to learn which other people to reach out to, and how.

One of my happiest moments during my daughter’s adolescence was when she was talking to me about a difficult relationship. By then she had patiently trained me to ask, “Do you want my advice or my sympathy?” I was listening sympathetically when she said, “I know what I’ll do! I’ll ask Adi. She always has good advice.” Adi was one of her oldest friends, and I could honestly reply, “Good idea!” Adi’s advice was excellent, and my daughter’s ability to ask the right person for advice, and then to follow that advice, gave me confidence in her future happiness.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t be concerned about how hurtful teens can be when they exclude or tease their peers. At best it’s the clumsiness that comes with learning new skills; at worst it is intolerance and bullying that calls for adult intervention. It’s essential that we give our children respect and unconditional affection so that they will refuse to settle for less from their friends.

It’s also important to take seriously the ups and downs of our children’s friendships; remember how powerful those experiences were for you when you were a teen and be as supportive as you can. In particular, be sensitive and cautious when your child is deciding whether the way someone has treated him or her means that the friendship should be ended or that the friend should be confronted. Those kinds of decisions are important preparation for adult life. (Yes, that’s assuming they want your opinion. Often they prefer to stumble through on their own).

Finally, be careful when deciding to discipline a teen by “grounding” him or her. Think of it this way: We no longer think it’s appropriate to send a misbehaving child to bed without dinner, because he needs that nutrition for his growth. In the same way, most teens need the emotional sustenance of their friendships. If a group of friends have seriously misbehaved together (for example, by playing a stupid prank or drinking and driving), then their time together should be supervised, and maybe limited. But if a generally well-behaved kid makes a more normal and minor mistake like skipping some chores, that’s not grounds for grounding.

Q:  I have very mixed feelings about fantasy. It seems to me that we humans tend to cling to imaginary things instead of seeking the beauty in reality. On the other hand, my reading as a kid was all about dragons and elves; I loved it and never confused it with the real world. As a humanistic parent, what place should I expect fantasy and imagination to have in my kids’ world?

A:  They belong somewhere very close to the center of that world.

In his introduction to The Log from the Sea of Cortez, John Steinbeck wrote, “The impulse that drives a man to poetry will send another man into the tide pools and force him to report what he finds there.” If anybody could say that with confidence, it would be a novelist on a scientific expedition. This remark was a profound comment on human nature: Both art and science spring from human tendencies to seek patterns in the world around us and to wonder, “What if … ?”

Steinbeck’s deceptively simple comment has a powerful message for humanist parents. It is just as important to encourage our children’s imagination and artistry as it is to encourage their reasoning abilities and love for science.

Humanist parents surely do encourage imagination and artistry as much as other parents. But in our public discussions, these concerns are overshadowed by worries about the influences of superstition and dogmatism in our culture. This creates the false impression that there has to be a choice. In fact, we really do have more options than either maintaining supernatural illusions or adopting a cold, gritty realism that sometimes consists of nothing more than resignation to the worst in life.

A key to giving our children more choices is to abandon guilt by association. Drums and trumpets have urged soldiers into battle, but rather than abandon music because it has been used in war, we can use it for love songs and joyous celebrations. Imagination—the ability to conceptualize events and experiences that don’t exist—has been pressed into the service of oppressive political and religious institutions and often abused. But instead of abandoning imagination, we can reclaim it as a resource for individuals.

It’s easy to make high-minded statements about the blessings that imagination offers as the source of art, literature, and practical inventions. They’d be true, but if that’s all we say, we imply that we have to justify the use of imagination. A more distinctively humanistic approach is to celebrate and nurture at least two uses of fantasy: fantasy as a tool children use in coming to terms with the world, and fantasy as a source of pleasure.

One of the greatest joys of childhood is fantasy, and children’s fantasies are endlessly varied. It’s fun to watch this play, and parents should feel free to join in. Humanist parents with religious spouses may be frightened when their children come home from Sunday school repeating myths; feminist parents may worry that old-fashioned fairy tales will make their daughters feel worthless and their sons disrespectful. But if we learn to understand how children use fantasy, it can be a gentle and powerful means of communication.

I once spent a full half-hour watching two little girls play Snow White. I might not have recognized the story if they hadn’t mentioned it aloud, because they re-enacted only one scene, over and over—Snow White’s resurrection. They ignored all sorts of details that worry adults: The wicked stepmother was nothing like their loving mommies, and the prince was nothing like the muddy little boys they played with. But, like many 4-year-olds, they had learned about death, and their play revealed a feeling shared by many adults—the wish that death could somehow be undone.

Later, grieving a death in the family, my daughter and I acted out the story of Buddha and the mustard seed; another time, we made up our own story about reincarnation. Another family might choose to read stories about different views of the afterlife: Valhalla is a different place from the Christian heaven. Another might choose to tell the story of Demeter and Persephone, and a child hearing it would make his or her own comparison, some day, between that tale and the one about Abraham and Isaac. Telling and inventing stories both encourages children to use their own imaginations and communicates that fantasy is a worthwhile activity. At the same time, myths and allegories are put into perspective; a child who has played with, then outgrown, imaginary friends and read about the fantastic spirits of other cultures will be less vulnerable to the latest craze for angels or aliens.

A child who has looked for animal shapes in clouds and in pieces of popcorn is prepared to understand how people imagine that they see a Madonna in the burned spots on a tortilla—and may be inspired to produce some highly imaginative art.

Wishing is another type of fantasy that influences reality. Children who pretend to be each other’s siblings often develop lifelong friendships.

As adults, we continue to daydream. Sometimes daydreams are the only pleasure we have, and, as long as we aren’t distracted from acting to improve our situations, daydreaming is an act of psychological resilience. Yet daydreaming that isn’t institutionalized (like political fervor and faith-healing) is commonly put down as childish. After all, daydreaming is fun in itself, and the things we dream of are sex, power, wealth, and love—worthy human pleasures derided by the most oppressive religious traditions.

Fantasy also nurtures the capacity to hope. Hope is radically different from faith. To hope is not to assume that things will be better, but to be sustained by the sense that they can be better and to act accordingly. With hope, we recognize those moments that call on us not merely to adapt to circumstances, but to seek, recognize, and seize the opportunity for change.

Seeking the opportunity means beginning with an act of imagination that can only be fulfilled through determination and rational striving, integrating all our human potentials.

So don’t wait for your child to ask. Have a wonderful time seeing what happens when you begin by saying, “Let’s pretend.”

 

Activities

Creating a meaningful life is a lifelong pursuit—and not one that translates easily into individual activities for a rainy afternoon. On the other hand, there are countless general ways in which we can promote creative engagement with meaning in our families. This section provides a few ideas and suggestions for making meaningful activities an integral part of your family’s life.

Simple Pleasures

All ages

The most meaningful and engaging activities are often the simplest: flying kites, a walk in the woods, a trip to the aquarium. The greatest obstacle to a life of simple pleasures is the ruthless schedule. Free up time from routine activities. Schedule some unplanned time every week. Turn work into play and waiting time into game time with word games, observation games, storytelling. Great resource for waiting games: Chapter 1 of Susan Perry’s Playing Smart: The Family Guide to Enriching, Offbeat Learning Activities for Ages 4–14.

Engage your kids in activities that use all the senses—the traditional senses of touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound and the kinesthetic (position of your body in space—what makes it fun to go swimming or just run around). Enjoy both passively and actively—for example, both listening to music and singing. Great resource for sensory play: Chapter 3 of Playing Smart.

Mix familiarity and novelty, choosing times when your kids are energetic and alert to try new activities. Make it a family tradition to try at least one new sensation a week—miniature golf, karaoke, an exotic fruit you haven’t tried before. Build on your child’s likes and dislikes. For example, a “picky eater” could have fun with blind tastings. Can your kid really taste the differences between different colored M&Ms? How about the difference between puréed carrots and squash? Singing together might lead to helping a verbally adept child make up funny words to familiar tunes, or giving musical toys and instruments to a kid who’s more interested in the melody might encourage new music.

Encouraging Flow Experiences

All ages

Give your child the vocabulary to understand and recognize flow experiences and their value. For example, there are times either one of you should be able to say to the other,“Can we talk later? I’m concentrating.” And, you can model enjoyment of challenges with comments like, “That was fun! I really had to try hard to figure out how to balance on a unicycle.” Great resource for encouraging flow: Pages 1–4 of Playing Smart.

Encouraging Positive Attitudes Toward Growth and Learning

For parents

View parenting videos at the “Half Full” website (http://peacecenter.berkeley.edu/tools.html), including “Effort, Not Achievement,” “Embracing Kids’ Failure,” and “Fostering Growth Mindsets.” Discuss these ideas with parenting partners. Reach a consensus on when a mistake should be considered an opportunity to grow and when it means a child needs help.

When you make mistakes, model honesty and lifelong learning. Find the humor or the lesson in the situation. For example, “Whoops! I left the sugar out of the lemonade. How silly can you get? You think I should try it with limes next time?” Or, after assembling furniture from a kit, “No wonder the chair is lopsided. I didn’t follow the instructions on page 6. Next time, I’ll look over the instructions before I start a project.”

The Signature Strengths Questionnaire

Ages 10–18

Preteens and teens enjoy taking questionnaires designed to tell them more about themselves. Encourage them to take the “Authentic Happiness” website’s “Signature Strengths” questionnaire. It could be fun for you to talk about these tests with your kids, or even take them together and compare notes, but be aware that many teens may prefer to talk about it with their peers—it goes with the territory of being a teen. Either way, taking the tests opens the door for reflection.

Talk about what insight into your personalities and relationships is offered by the Strengths questionnaire results: for example, “No wonder you are always asking me questions! Curiosity is one of your key strengths.”

As a family, choose a character strength that you will all work on for a month. For example, use the exercises in the “Caring” chapter of What Do You Stand For? Or, increase your appreciation of the good things in life by setting aside time each day for each family member to talk about “three good things that happened to me.” (This exercise is based on research findings that people who keep a “gratitude diary” increase their happiness and appreciation of life.) Another excellent questionnaire: Barbara Lewis’s What Do You Stand For? A Kid’s Guide to Building Character (page 7).

Thinking About Friendship

Young children

Help your kids develop “emotional intelligence” about themselves and others. Comment on the evident feelings of people around you and characters in stories. “Joey is crying; he must be feeling sad.”“Why do you think Maria is laughing?” Comment on your child’s feelings and encourage him or her to express them. Help with simple terms for complex feelings; for example, when my 3-year-old was obviously feeling ambivalent, I talked about her seeming to have “mixed-up feelings.” Also, keep communications clear by commenting on the feelings underlying a statement or an action. For example, if your child says, “I hate you!” answer, “Wow! You are really mad at me, aren’t you?”

Talk with your child about who she likes or doesn’t like to play with, and why. When she doesn’t want to play with another child, it may be a problem you can help resolve. But some kids really are incompatible, and their choices need to be respected as much as possible. Sometimes kids play in different ways with different friends, and it isn’t until they’re older that they can figure out how to bring these friends together (for example, your child may feel uncomfortable bringing together a friend who goes in for rough-and-tumble play and a friend who likes to act out stories). All these issues affect your child’s developing sense of identity.

Middle school

This is the time when many parents worry that their kids are too driven by pressure to conform. Often that’s true, but it’s more complicated than that. Kids are also choosing friends as a part of figuring out who they are or would like to be and as part of the process of becoming more independent from their families. Knowing your child’s particular strengths enables you to help him choose friends who are also curious/kind/in love with learning. On the other hand, if she’s interested in people who are very different, it takes sensitive attention to figure out whether she’s exploring new possibilities in a way you want to support, or indeed yielding to unhealthy social pressures.

Late middle school and high school

Help your teen choose extracurricular activities that involve his personal strength—science camp for the curious critical thinker, for example, or appropriate volunteer work for an especially kind, generous kid.

Encouraging Fantasy and Creativity

All ages

Enjoy the arts with your kids, as well as encouraging them to have fun on their own. Enjoy both actively and passively: that is, singing or playing music as well as listening; enjoying the visual arts, and drawing, painting, playing with clay yourselves. Read stories and make them up. Have fun experimenting with materials; books with art activities for preschoolers have lots of good ideas. Make bath time fun with soap “crayons” that wash off the tub surround; fingerpaint with pudding mix; drum with wooden spoons on pots and pans.

Think carefully before offering formal lessons. Some kids will want to enjoy themselves without being told what to do, while others might enjoy lessons as a way to learn new techniques.

Role-playing can help your child find the courage to do something scary or develop a new skill. For example, it’s a thrill for a 4- or 5-year-old to be entrusted with the responsibility of answering the phone. Practice with a script:

PARENT: Ring! Ring!

CHILD: Hello. Who’s calling please?

PARENT: Is Ms. Matsumura there?

CHILD: I’ll see. Can I ask who’s calling?

Take inspiration from silly fantasies in children’s stories. For example, in The Wonderful O, James Thurber imagines the consequences when a king bans the use of the letter “O”—among other things, Ophelia Oliver doesn’t want to say her name any more! What would happen if we dropped the letter “A”? If rivers ran backwards? If people could walk on the ceiling like flies (especially if they were trying to wear hats)?

Differentiating fantasy from reality is a common concern of humanist parents. Remember that serious imagining can be the first step to a marvelous goal. You can talk with your child about the difference between pretend ways to make something happen and real ways to make it happen. There are many stories of people flying by flapping their arms or tying on imitation bird wings. Then there are the stories of experiments that led to the invention of airplanes and even human-powered flight (the original “Gossamer Condor” is on display at the Smithsonian Institution, and there are books and DVDs about it.)

Listen to your kids’ fantasies as a way of learning about their feelings. For example, while having an imaginary friend may just be a fun game, it may mean your child wants more chances to play with other kids.

 

Resources

Happiness and Flow

Authentic Happiness

www.authentichappiness.com

Maintained by the Positive Psychology Center of the University of Pennsylvania, this website includes such self-assessment tools as a survey of individual strengths for adults and a shorter questionnaire that helps kids about 10 and older identify their individual character strengths. Children under 13 must be registered by their parents. It’s a site you will want to revisit from time to time as interesting research reports accumulate. Imagine how helpful it will be to know the outcome of a research project on teaching ninth graders positive psychology. Special feature: Articles by Ben Dean on “Open-Mindedness,” “Love of Learning,” “Persistence,” and “Integrity” in the Authentic Happiness Coaching Newsletters.

Greater Good Science Center: The Science of Raising Happy Kids

www.greatergoodscience.org > Click on FOR PARENTS

Affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley, this is a rich, varied, and accessible treasury of resources for parents. Focus is on “the scientific understanding of happy and compassionate individuals, strong social bonds, and altruistic behavior.” Parenting videos, the “Half Full” parenting blog, and Greater Good Magazine are just a few of the offerings. Special feature: Wonderful, engaging, down-to-earth videos on raising happy kids.

Seligman, Martin. Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment (New York: Free Press, 2004). A readable overview of scientific research on what really makes people happy, including short self-tests and practical tools to use in daily life, lightened up with personal anecdotes. There is one chapter on parenting, so you might prefer to get the book from the library (although many tools appropriate for adults can be extrapolated to kids.)

Carter, Christine.“The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness,” a research report for the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. http://peacecenter.berkeley.edu/research_families_carter.html. This chapter draws on research in the field of positive psychology, and this article summarizes some of its findings. Written for parents, it helps sort out nature and nurture and summarizes research on what we can do to help our kids grow into happy adults with the skills to lead a fulfilling life.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 1998). The definitive work on the subject.

Creativity

Writing with Writers

www.teacher.scholastic.com/writewit

Affiliated with Scholastic Books, this wonderful website includes ideas for many kinds of writing (for example, biography, descriptive, myth) and places that publish kids’ writing. Special feature: A “Brainstorming Machine” for writing myths. Click on WRITING MYTHS > Myth Brainstorming Machine.

Perry, Susan K. Playing Smart: The Family Guide to Enriching, Offbeat Learning Activities for Ages 4–14, revised ed. (Minneapolis: Free Spirit Publishing, 2001). Now available at the author’s website at www.bunnyape.com/other_books.htm. I wish I’d had this book when my kids were little; I’ll make sure my grandchildren’s parents have it. Where else would you find a book with a list of dozens of books for children written by famous adult authors (Maya Angelou, David Mamet, Isaac Bashevis Singer), and chapters on fun in the kitchen, a backyard, in cemeteries, and a chapter on how kids can learn about their own psychology and other peoples’. Definitely a life-enricher.

Gould, Roberta. The Kids Multicultural Craft Book: 35 Crafts from Around the World (Charlotte, VT: Williamson Publishing, 2004). Why this book, out of the countless arts and crafts books that are available? Instructions are clear and thorough, always letting kids know if an adult should be available; many of the projects really can and will continue to be used (like the musical instruments); the ideas for using recycled materials are well calculated to inspire your kids to find more uses for everyday objects; another layer of excitement is added by the author’s stories about how she learned various crafts, and her explanations of their cultural context. (An inset at the beginning of each project locates its origin on a map of the home continent.)

Character, Reflection, and More

Lewis, Barbara A. What Do You Stand For? A Kid’s Guide to Building Character (Minneapolis: Free Spirit Publishing, 1998). Preteens and teens enjoy taking quizzes and surveys that help them understand themselves better. The survey on page 7 of this book helps them identify the ethical strengths they already have and where they would like to grow. And then the following chapters offer probing questions and practical exercises for helping your kids become the people they would like to be.

Comte-Sponville, Andre. The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality (New York: Viking Adult, 2007). A marvelous, thought-provoking new book addressing one of the most common concerns about a world without religion.

Grayling, A.C. The Meaning of Things: Applying Philosophy to Life (London: Phoenix, New Ed edition, 2002). One of the great living writers exploring meaning from the humanist perspective.

Winell, Marlene. Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion (Berkeley: Apocryphile Press, 2006). Written as a guide for people who have left fundamentalist religion and are going through major emotional changes, this book will also be helpful to parents who want to give their children an upbringing different from what they experienced. The book contains practical exercises and chances for reflection that can help you become the parent you want to be, or give your kids useful guidance.

Especially relevant to meaning and purpose: Chapter 13, “Living Life Now” (especially the sections on pleasure and humor); Chapter 14,“Thinking for Yourself”; and Chapter 15, “Choosing and Creating.”

Notes

1.   Ecclesiastes 8:15 (King James version). Yes, really! What a humanistic statement! No wonder commentators have pointed out that Ecclesiastes is very different from the rest of the bible.

2.   Russell, Bertrand. Quoted at www.wisdomquotes.com (WQ), a reliable source maintained by Ethical Culture Leader Jone Johnson. Accessed March 4, 2008.

3.   Roosevelt, Franklin D. First Inaugural Address. Saturday, March 4, 1933.

4.   George Sand.

5.   Ingersoll, Robert G., in the course of a discussion on The Limits of Toleration (1888). For the full text of this statement by the “Great Agnostic” of the 19th century, www.secularweb.org. Accessed March 4, 2008.

6.   Helen Keller. Wisdom Quotes. www.wisdomquotes.com

7.   One method these researchers have used is The Experience-Sampling Method (ESM), in which participants keep a log in which they describe specific activities they were engaged in and accompanying moods on a detailed list provided by researchers. Tens of thousands of people have participated in such studies, which in turn served as the basis for numerous scientific studies.

8.   Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 1998), pp. 28–29. Other aspects of this discussion have been taken from pp. 23–34. See also “Flow vs. its opposite” (www.daddy-dialectic.blogspot.com/2007/01/flow-vs-its-opposite.html) and “Outside Room 15” (www.greatergoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/01/outside-room-15-chocolate-ice-cream-vs.html#links) for two brilliant blog excursions on flow. Both sites accessed April 28, 2008.

9.   For example, Dweck, C.S., & Kamins, M.L. Person versus process, praise and criticism: Implications for contingent self-worth and coping, Developmental Psychology, 35(3) (1999), 835–847; and Dweck, C.S., & Kamins, M.L. Praise for intelligence can undermine children’s motivation and performance, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(1) (1998), 41. These and similar research results are described at http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/half_full/?p=49. Accessed April 28, 2008.

10.   Peterson, C., and Seligman, M., Character Strengths and Virtues, A Handbook and Classification (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). This is the academic text. A list of the “twenty-four strengths” is at www.viastrengths.org, along with a brief summary of how the classification was developed and how it is used in research. Accessed May 4, 2008.

11.   Park, N., Peterson, C., & Seligman, M.E.P., Strengths of character and well-being among youth. Unpublished manuscript, University of Rhode Island, 2005. Abstract accessed May 4, 2008, from www.viastrengths.org/Research/Abstracts/tabid/63/Default.aspx

12.   “History of the [VIA] Classification and Survey.” Accessed May 4, 2008, from www.viastrengths.org/AboutVIA/ClassificationOverview/tabid/66/Default.aspx

13.   According to a research overview at www.viastrengths.org/Research/tabid/57/Default.aspx, “Much of the early research … [on] the association between character strengths and life … point[s] in particular to the strengths of love, hope, gratitude, curiosity, and zest as robust contributors.” (This overview includes citations of scholarly literature). Site accessed May 4, 2008.

14.   “A study with more than 4000 participants revealed that five key strengths—gratitude, optimism, zest, curiosity, and the ability to love and be loved—are more closely and consistently related to life satisfaction than the other strengths.” Dean, Ben, PhD, “The Five Key Strengths” adapted from the Authentic Happiness Newsletter, 2(7), and posted at www.viastrengths.org/VIAClassification/MoreOnStrengths/FiveKeyStrengths/tabid/116/Default.aspx. Note that these lists of key strengths are overlapping, but not identical. Accessed May 4, 2008.

15.   Csikszentmihalyi points out that, “The most positive experiences people report are usually those with friends. This is especially true for adolescents …” (p. 81). He continues on pp. 85–88 to discuss how friendship has become an important part of modern family life, and how friendships within the family work differently from friendships outside the family.