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It takes a lot more than that to raise happy children. First, the home environment needs to be loving and supportive. That may sound like a given on the surface of it, but it simply isn't the case for some kids, even in some of these high-scoring countries on the happiness scale. There may be alcoholism in the home. There may be a parent, or two, even, who suffered trauma in childhood and have the kind of subtle or not-so-subtle mental illnesses that result from unresolved childhood PTSD: depression, for example. Even if the state is able to make up for some of the home-environment deficiencies, by providing teachers who nurture curiosity, and diverse learning experiences and measurements of academic performance, that often isn't enough to overcome the influence of a child's upbringing in a dysfunctional family.
These happiness polls (or "studies") hide the usual variety of ills playing out in home life that are part of the human condition. They can't be legislated away, unless mental health care is more readily available to children and the public is educated as to its importance. And who would make the determination, that mental health care may be needed for any given child, if the parents think things are fine, or if they've convinced themselves that "nobody's perfect", so there's nothing to call the psychologist about? Or they don't want to admit to themselves, that they may be burdening their child with their own neuroses?
Bhutan, instead of a Gross National Product, famously instituted (and convinced the UN to accept) their measures for the Gross National Happiness. Over years, all kinds of unexpected issues began to come to light. Women were routinely beaten at home by their husbands for such minor transgressions as burning the family dinner. And they believed they deserved to be beaten. 12-year-old monks were being diagnosed with depression, and some with STD's!
"Family volunteering" and "diversity in learning and evaluating"? Please. Let's get serious, and start looking under the carpets for factors that may be holding kids back in their development toward full psychological well-being. Now that a Happiness study has been done, how about a Discontent study, just in case part of the picture has been obscured? All Dutch (or Finnish, or Danish, to name other winners of national happiness polls) are happy? That's great that prosperous societies have been able to create a certain amount of stability, so people can feel content. The US is far behind in that regard. But no matter how much the state provides, human foibles won't disappear, let's face it.
Nurture curiosity- we scold children more often that not for even a reasonable rebuttal and scream at them “my house my rules” or “because I said so” with nearly no intelligent conversation with why this is this way or the thought process that went into something.
Family volunteering/community service - if this is supposed to be a positive thing, why does our justice system use this as a punishment instead of it being an overall incentive for the general public? No one is completely altruistic, say if those with student loans could get partial loan forgiveness for community service, everyone would embrace community service and it benefits everyone.
Diversity in learning and measurement of academic performance - even on this forum, parents wear what schools they could afford to send their child to like a badge of honor. They brag about X school having the highest test scores. Even in the inner-city HS I went to they tried to slam every graduate into college with no thought that some kids could work better with their hands then their mouth.
Dutch parents are careful and deliberate about having kids. They don't enter into relationships lightly, they have kids when they are in love and have money to afford them. This probably comes from being such a small country. So when they have them (just 1.57 children per woman), they can give the kids proper quality attention and resources which makes them... happy.
Nurture curiosity- we scold children more often that not for even a reasonable rebuttal and scream at them “my house my rules” or “because I said so” with nearly no intelligent conversation with why this is this way or the thought process that went into something.
Family volunteering/community service - if this is supposed to be a positive thing, why does our justice system use this as a punishment instead of it being an overall incentive for the general public? No one is completely altruistic, say if those with student loans could get partial loan forgiveness for community service, everyone would embrace community service and it benefits everyone.
Diversity in learning and measurement of academic performance - even on this forum, parents wear what schools they could afford to send their child to like a badge of honor. They brag about X school having the highest test scores. Even in the inner-city HS I went to they tried to slam every graduate into college with no thought that some kids could work better with their hands then their mouth.
Diss hit the nail on the head about the "because I said so", and all that. The exception to that are the parents who went to the opposite extreme, in a "non-authoritarian" child-raising fad, that advocated, that kids be allowed to boss their parents around, and parents do all they can to meet those demands. It seems like we're a nation of extremes in child-rearing, where no one really knows what they should be doing without reading a book about the latest theories and fads.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Back to NE;
Dutch parents are careful and deliberate about having kids. They don't enter into relationships lightly, they have kids when they are in love and have money to afford them. This probably comes from being such a small country. So when they have them (just 1.57 children per woman), they can give the kids proper quality attention and resources which makes them... happy.
They should be the model for the whole world.
Americans have an odd relationship to kids. Too many couples decide they want kids, but they don't want to have to deal with the crying-baby phase, the first year of life. I still hear about couples, who put the infant as far as possible from the parental room at night, so they won't have to hear it cry. One couple even had a contractor build a sound-proof room to put their baby in. I've also heard about the opposite trend: doctors and some child-rearing experts now advocate "co-sleeping" with the infant. At least some people are making an effort to bond with their baby and provide some security. But this comes naturally in many cultures around the world. If you don't want to deal with a crying infant, you're not ready for kids.
Americans generally speaking (allowing for exceptions) have been seriously adrift from healthy child-rearing practices since the Victorian era, if not before. The same might go for some Brits.
Most people in America have kids. They’re not all gonna be happy.
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