childhood happiness essay

Childhood is the Best Stage of Happiness IELTS Essay

Childhood is the best stage of happiness ielts essay.

Some people say that childhood is the best stage for happiness. Others believe that in life a person can enjoy more happiness in other stages of life. Discuss both views and give your opinion.

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. You should write at least 250 words.

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People have different opinions about happiness and the happiest moments in their lives. While many people find that they were very happy as teenagers, others find that adulthood was more enjoyable than their teenage years. In my opinion, the happiest periods of life can vary from person to person.

Every stage of life has its joys and sorrows. Many people remember their teenage years with the greatest importance. There are several reasons for this. Most people would enjoy a greater sense of freedom during their college or high school days. Since in those years friendship and brotherhood were in the prime of life, many experienced joyful moments. For example, college parties and sporting events were great ways to get together and have fun. In addition, teenagers have far fewer responsibilities than adults. ielts xpress

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On the other hand, adult life offers several positive and happy moments. Most adults fondly remember their cherished moments, such as their first home or job, the celebration of their wedding day, the birth of a child, and so on. With age, people also develop and evolve qualities such as maturity and understanding. These factors can bring a sense of satisfaction and stability, which in turn contributes to long-term happiness in many people’s lives.

To conclude, adult and teenage life has its fair share of ups and downs. While the lack of responsibility makes life pleasurable in adolescence, it is the fulfillment of one’s dreams and aspirations that makes adulthood more memorable. In my opinion, everyone should decide for himself which period was the happiest in his life.

Also Check: Young People Spend Less Time on Outdoor Activities Essay

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Child Development

Childhood Happiness: More Than Just Child's Play

The lasting value of childhood happiness..

Posted January 13, 2012

Understanding Child Development
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How happy was your childhood ? A seemingly simple question can be more complicated to answer than one would think. Most people are able to think of a wide array of events, activities, people and things they encountered during their childhood. Some memories are happy, and some sad, upsetting, or frightening. Is the impression we have of our childhood happiness the sum of all that we have experienced or primarily a function of the good or the bad?

It isn't clear how accurate childhood memories are. Many of them are incomplete and have been influenced by the retelling, input from others, and viewing photographs and souvenirs. Our understanding of childhood events can be quite different when viewed from the adult perspective. So, impressions of childhood are not necessarily accurate reflections of the quality of that time period. An individual can remember childhood as better or worse than it really was. While the events themselves can have an impact on psychological well-being during adulthood, one's perception of the events can also influence well-being.

For example, believing that you were cheated of the things, experiences, love or acceptance that every child deserves can negatively impact relationships and feelings of adequacy and belonging. Recent research suggests that the impression of having had a happy childhood is associated with greater social connectedness, enhanced sense of self, and healthy behaviors. Adverse impressions of childhood are related to greater difficulty in relationships, self-insight, and dealing with distress.

An incredible amount of attention has been devoted to how children should be raised. Parents can seek advice from experts in books, magazine articles, on television and websites. Parents want to know how much of their children's time should be spent in educational endeavors, sports, creative arts, and recreational activities. Which toys, games, smart media, television programs, exercise, music, and role models are safe, acceptable, beneficial, or harmful?

Recent research is beginning to explore the extent to which different aspects of childhood are associated with an individual's impression of how happy her or his childhood had been. Impressions of childhood happiness are related more closely to social events and activities than to more solitary ones. For example, having a party for a special occasion is important to the memory of having a happy childhood, whereas getting things a child had wanted such as toys and games is not. Family traditions, praise from a family member, and interacting (doing things together, sharing secrets, etc.) with siblings, friends, or trusted adults are all important to establishing a happy childhood. The time a child spends entertaining him or herself by playing video games, watching television, hiking, fishing, drawing or listening to music contributes less to the sense of childhood happiness.

Parents worry about unhappy or adverse experiences that can happen in childhood. Again, the social or solitary nature of problems is important. For example, serious health problems or academic difficulties are not strongly related to the sense of how happy one's childhood had been, whereas witnessing parents argue, being bullied, or being rejected by peers contribute to a sense of having had an unhappy childhood. Children can't be protected from every adversity, but attention to their feelings can make a difference. While separation from a loved one is an unhappy experience, feeling lonely is more important to the adult sense of having been unhappy as a child. Similarly, children are not always satisfied with their physical appearance, but changing what they can by losing weight or trying a new hairstyle can lessen the emotional impact.

Parents can observe their children's activities and their performance in school, sports, music or art. What is not as obvious is how their children feel about the events and experiences, and how they feel will be more important in shaping their view of childhood happiness. It is more important that a child feel proud of an achievement or pleased with their performance than being selected for a team or receiving an award.

It isn't possible to ensure that a child will experience only success and happy times. But recent research suggests that the role of other people and how children feel can be more important than the events. Getting things a child wants, academic issues, or failing to make a sports team are not strongly related to the adult perspective of childhood happiness. It is feeling loved by parents that makes the most influential contribution to childhood happiness. As adults, we no longer feel that the number of toys, sports trophies, or top grades we received as children were as important as we thought. What is important to us as adults is knowing that we shared joys and sorrows, successes and disappointments with people who loved us. Long after our memories of toys, gifts, test scores have faded, the feelings of trust, comfort, reassurance, and love remain.

Krystine Batcho, Ph.D. , is a professor at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.

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✍️Essay on Childhood: Samples in 100, 150 and 200 Words

Updated on
Nov 2, 2023

Essay on Childhood: How was your childhood? I bet it was full of adventure, fun and joyful activities. Agatha Christie has rightly said – ‘One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood.’ Childhood memories are considered one of the most beautiful days one can ever experience in their life. Those are the days one can never forget. Well, no amount of words can describe those good old days. Today we will highlight the importance of childhood with some essays on childhood which you can use anywhere.

Table of Contents

1 Importance of Childhood
2 Essay on Childhood in 100 Words
3 Essay on Childhood in 150 Words
4 Essay on Childhood in 200 Words

Importance of Childhood

Childhood is life’s early stage of development where growth and changes rapidly take place A child needs to be nurtured and loved by all their family, friends, and teachers around him. At the same time, the child must have a healthy childhood to have a better mental health lifelong.

Childhood is that stage where young children get to learn about themselves as well as their surroundings. Early childhood is the best time to learn about developing good habits that will help them shape their future and at the same time be good human beings. Children should get into the habit of eating healthy food, getting fresh air, drinking plenty of water and finally doing a lot of exercise. By doing so, this will help them to grow into resilient adults who will be able to handle any situation.

Moreover, a child’s childhood is that period of their lifetime when they get to develop their personalities. Also, it is the time when they must be exposed to a variety of situations to develop into responsible people. It is important to remember that childhood is a time when children learn from their experiences and mistakes, explore various opportunities and create memories from them.

Also Read: Essay on the Importance of the English Language for Students

Also Read: How to Prepare for UPSC in 6 Months?

Essay on Childhood in 100 Words

Childhood is that period when a child is considered to be one of the most carefree and joyful. In this period, a child has a lot of innocence, an unlimited number of opportunities and is naive.

Some of the best childhood memories one can have are learning new things, playing with their friends, spending time with their family and finally learning skills which will help them lifelong. We all can recall those days when we used to play various types of games with our friends in the evening after school. The excitement of finishing our studies and going out, those days of watching our favourite TV shows can never be forgotten.

Apart from all the fun days, childhood is the best time for personal development. We pick up the skills necessary such as communication skills and engage with the world. Each of us develops our distinct interests.

Also Read: Essay on Save Environment: Samples in 100, 200, 300 Words

Essay on Childhood in 150 Words

We all remember that magical period of our lives- Childhood. It was that time of our lives when the world around us was full of excitement when we were surrounded by our close ones and had nothing to worry about. Those days when all we had to do was study, meet friends, go to school and play outside. We all had created our exciting worlds.

One of my most treasured childhood memories is, spending time with family and friends. Those days when we would visit our grandparent’s house, listening to stories during vacations is another of the best memories. All these memories have led to the creation of a unique bond between our family and who we have become as adults.

Apart from all the memories, childhood is the most important period of our lives when we get to learn new things and mould ourselves. It is rightly said that what we learn during our childhood days we get to carry throughout our lives.

How beautiful was that period, when we got to cultivate our talents, pick up new skills, and create our own distinct identities

Also Read: Essay on Unity in Diversity in 100 to 200 Words

Essay on Childhood in 200 Words

Childhood is a magical period of one’s life. Those days of innocence, fun and endless possibilities, oh, how can one forget that It is now that we wish that we had the chance to relive that period once again? How can we forget that time when we created an endless amount of memories which will last a lifetime?

Gone are those days when we fought with our parents to buy us toys or play. With time, the definition of childhood has also changed. Children in the 21st century will now have a unique childhood experience, shaped by the technological advancements and social changes of our time. Now, children have access to information on their electronic devices (iPads/Phones). How can we forget, that children now prefer to use smartphones for entertaining themselves rather than playing outside?

Despite these changes, the meaning of childhood can change no matter if the way of living has changed. Growing children still crave the love, support and guidance which will help them to be responsible adults.

To conclude, everybody’s childhood is a priceless period. Parents and other adults who care for children contribute to their joyful and fulfilled childhood by showing them love, support, and guidance.

The time of life from birth to adolescence is known as childhood. It is a period of fast-paced cognitive, emotional, and physical growth. During this period, children learn and develop, acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed as adults.

Early experiences have a significant impact on how the brain develops in children.

There is no specified age for childhood. It depends on the person’s brain development. A person aged 18 or 21 can be considered as a child than someone who is 16 or 17.

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Malvika Chawla

Malvika is a content writer cum news freak who comes with a strong background in Journalism and has worked with renowned news websites such as News 9 and The Financial Express to name a few. When not writing, she can be found bringing life to the canvasses by painting on them.

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CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article

Happy children: a modern emotional commitment.

$\r\nPeter N. Stearns*$

Department of History, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, United States

American parents greatly value children’s happiness, citing it well above other possible priorities. This commitment to happiness, shared with parents in other Western societies but not elsewhere, is an important feature of popular emotional culture. But the commitment is also the product of modern history, emerging clearly only in the 19th century. This article explains the contrast between more traditional and modern views, and explains the origins but also the evolution of the idea of a happy childhood. Early outcomes, for example, included the novel practice of hosting parties for children’s birthdays, another mid-19th-century innovation that has expanded over time. Explaining the intensification of the happiness commitment also reveals some of the downsides of this aspect of popular emotional culture, for example in measurably complicating reactions to childish unhappiness. The basic goal of the essay is to use this important facet of modern emotional history to evaluate a commitment that many modern parents assume is simply natural.

One of the most pervasive beliefs about emotion, at least in American culture, is the idea that children should be happy and that childhood should be a happy, perhaps unusually happy, stage of life. There is little question that many parents are strongly guided by this standard, even though a variety of experts argue that they often go about it in the wrong way. And it is highly likely that many adults simply assume that childhood happiness is a natural connection, that while its implementation may be varied and debated and while a few reprobates may not accept the goal at all, the basic notion is simply a normal part of human life.

International polling confirms the pervasiveness of the happy childhood assumption, in American and several other cultures – though it also opens the door for a somewhat more nuanced assessment. A recent survey found that 73% of Americans rated happiness as the most important goal in raising children and assessing the results of education – far ahead of any other option. And they were joined, or even modestly surpassed, by a number of other modern Western societies: Canada at 78%, with France heading the pack at 86%. Other goals paled in comparison, even though it was possible to select more than one option: only 20% of Americans rated success as a major goal (along with 17% in Australia and the United Kingdom).

However – and here is the first opening for more than a brief summary of the happiness/childhood emotional linkage – several other major societies presented quite a different profile in the same poll. Most strikingly only about 49% of respondents in India selected happiness, overshadowed by the 51% who put success and achievement first. Mexicans also rated success most highly. The Chinese, interestingly, did not seize on success but they did not highlight happiness either, putting good health at the top of the list. The poll suggested, plausibly enough, that a predominant commitment to children’s happiness was an artifact of advanced economic development (bolstered, quite possibly, by a particular dose of Westernism as well) ( Malhotra, 2015 ).

Certainly the American assumption that happiness and childhood go together can be additionally confirmed. A childrearing expert, Robin Berman, puts it this way: “When I give parenting lectures around the country, I always ask the audience ‘What do you want most for your children/’… The near-universal response I get is ‘I just want my kids to be happy.”’ Berman herself deeply challenges the validity of this commitment, but for now the main point, again, is to emphasize the depth of the American assumption (shared, clearly, with other Western societies). It is understandable that many Americans simply take the priority for granted, open perhaps to a discussion of what strategies best achieve the goal but not inclined to subject the goal itself to much scrutiny. The idea that children should be happy, indeed that childhood stands out as a particularly happy time of life, is deeply ingrained ( Berman, 2016 ).

But without placing too much emphasis on international polling, the gap between Western and Asian (or Mexican) responses already suggests that the childhood/happiness equation is not automatic or in any sense natural, but the product of more particular circumstance. And this in turn opens the way to a more searching analysis, aimed initially at determining where the idea that children should be happy came from in the first place and then tracing the way the association has evolved in the United States, with some clear downsides or problems attached.

Assessing the childhood/happiness linkage provides in fact a fruitful opportunity to demonstrate the role of emotions history in shedding light on significant popular assumptions and commitments. The emotions history field, which has grown rapidly within the history discipline over the past 30 years, contends that key aspects of the emotional beliefs and experiences of any society are shaped not by invariable psychobiology but by particular social and cultural circumstances. This means that we can learn more about the past by including emotional variables in the human equation and that – as in this case – we can understand current patterns better if we examine how they have emerged from contrasting assumptions in the past ( Matt and Stearns, 2013 ; Boddice, 2018 ).

In the case of happy children, the emotions history approach raises two initial questions, before we get into most recent evolution of the association: what did people think about happiness and childhood at an earlier point and when (and of course why) did the happiness emphasis begin to develop.

The most glaring historical challenge to the childhood happiness equation is not easy to handle, but it adds up to the statement: before about the middle of the 19th century most Americans (and, probably, most people in most agricultural societies) did not equate children and happiness and indeed were unlikely to see childhood as a particularly happy phase of life ( Greven, 1988 ; Mintz, 2006 ). This does not mean that they necessarily expected children to be unhappy, or that they were gratuitously nasty to children, or that they did not enjoy moments of shared joy. But any kind of systematic happiness, or even a common use of the term, was simply not part of popular expectations ( Gillis, 1981 ). 1

And the reasons for this stance are not hard to identify, in a combination of general features of premodern childhood and some particular cultural assumptions that took deep root in colonial America. In the first place, high child mortality rates – with 30–50% of all children born perishing before age 5 – surrounded children themselves with frequent death and constrained adult reactions as well. A dead child might be deeply mourned, but the expectation of transiency obviously affected perceptions of childhood more generally: adulthood could easily be seen as a preferable state. Further, for most people childhood after infancy was primarily associated with work, under the sometimes rough direction of adults. Childishness, in this context, was not highly valued, as opposed to the early acquisition of more mature qualities. In all probability, obedience was the quality most sought in children themselves. Small wonder that, before the 19th century, few autobiographers spent much time describing their childhoods in any detail or referring to their early years with any pleasure ( Stearns, 2016 ).

This is not to say that before the 19th century children had no pleasure, or that adults never enjoyed their more informal interactions with offspring: considerable historical debate cautions against too gloomy a view. Work requirements were not always too intense, particularly for younger children, and there were informal opportunities for playfulness ( Huizinga, 2016 ). 2 Traditional leisure outlets, and particularly the village festival, gave young people some space for pranks and hijinks. But none of this seriously qualifies the claim that more systematic ideas associating childhood with happiness were lacking.

In the colonial American context, this general situation was exacerbated, particularly in New England, by the strong Protestant commitment to the notion of original sin. How many adults viewed actual children through this severe lens is hard to determine, though it was certainly linked to harsh disciplinary practices in schoolrooms and churches. But even if youngsters were not actively seen as sinners requiring redress, Protestant beliefs certainly argued against conceptions of happy childhoods. Indeed a number of studies suggest that, even for adults, an emphasis on a degree of melancholy was urged even for adults, well into the 18th century ( Greven, 1988 ; Demos, 1999 ; Mintz, 2006 ).

Granting the perils of trying to establish the absence of a quality in the past, the claim seems reasonably secure: the association of childhood and systematic happiness, as opposed to periodic moments of release, is essentially a modern development.

Several factors, taking shape in the later 18th and early 19th centuries in the United States and other parts of the Western world, began to reshape the conception of childhood, despite the lingering hand of the past.

Interest in happiness in general began to accelerate in Western culture during the second half of the 19th century ( Kotchimedova, 2005 ; MacMahon, 2006 ; Jones, 2017 ). The Enlightenment encouraged a new commitment to optimism about life on this earth, and hopes for happiness increased accordingly. Apologies for good humor, common during the previous century with its preference for melancholy in the face of human sinfulness, began to disappear ( Stearns, 1988 ). Even more, a positive expectation that decent people should present a cheerful demeanor began to gain ground. One historian has suggested that, along with the general push from Enlightenment thinking, improvements in dentistry and a decrease in rotten teeth heightened a willingness to smile openly – and to expect others to do the same ( Jones, 2017 ). Emphasis on happiness may also have been furthered by some measurable improvements in life’s comforts, from home heating to cleaner clothing, at least for the property-owning middle classes. And of course, in revolutionary America, pursuit of happiness was listed as a basic right.

This significant cultural shift did not initially apply to children, at least with any specificity. Older beliefs persisted. Checking the rise of attention through the relative frequency word use (happiness, cheerfulness) bears this out suggestively ( Figures 1 , 2 ). Google Ngrams suggest the chronological lag: while references to cheerfulness and happiness in general peaked in relative frequency during the 18th century in American English, commentary on happy children was virtually non-existent until the 19th century, and became at all common only in the middle decades of the century. 3

Figure 1. Frequency of the word “happiness” in American English, 1700–2008, Google Ngram viewer, accessed March 19, 2019.

Figure 2. Frequency of the phrase “happy children” in American English, 1700–2008, Google Ngram viewer, accessed March 19, 2019.

Obviously, sometime was required to overcome earlier assumptions and extend new cultural expectations downward in age. For several decades after 1800, some halting steps suggested the difficulty of fully overcoming earlier standards: thus the idea of cheerful obedience gained ground in family manuals. Insistence on obedience was maintained, but for the first time the potentially demanding hope that it could be accompanied by a cheerful demeanor was added to the list ( Stearns, 2014 ).

In addition to the time required to apply an initially adult innovation to the thinking about children, several other shifts in the first half of the 19th century further explain the timing of the change. Most obviously, amid intense American debate during the 1820s and 1830s, traditional notions of original sin were increasingly replaced, in mainstream Protestantism, by insistence on childish innocence. By the late 1820s the most widely purchased family manuals routinely highlighted children’s sweetness and purity, which only bad adult behavior would corrupt. An obvious barrier to the notion that children might be happy was being lifted, though amid ongoing sectarian dispute ( Sedgwick, 1850 ). 4

Here it is possible to see how the new cultural commitment to happiness combined with several other social factors to generate a new approach to children. Most obviously the birth rate began to drop, which may have facilitated more emotional attention to the individual child. Work obligations increasingly yielded to schooling as a child’s obligation, in the middle classes; seeing children in less functional terms might have contributed to a new interest in happiness, bolstered as well by a desire to cushion the burdens of education. Most tantalizingly, the middle decades of the 19th century saw a general middle-class interest in portraying the family as an emotional refuge from the complexities of economic and social life amid early industrialization – what one historian has called the family as “haven in a heartless world.” Here was a clear context for new attention to cheerful children as part of this equation, linking the shift to social pressures as well as the larger cultural framework ( Lasch, 1977 ; Mintz, 2006 ).

Certainly, as the role of the middle-class family began to shift away from function as a production unit and toward service as a source of emotional refuge and support, the ideal of a loving and happy assemblage, children very much included both as beneficiary and source, became increasingly common. While smile-drenched photographs would await the 20th century, in part thanks to improvements in technology, positive representations of the family unit, often grouped around a piano, became increasingly common ( Mintz, 2006 ).

Again, the middle decades of the 19th century were something of a transition. Association of happiness and childhood continued to gain ground, but explicit discussions of parental obligations concerning happiness, or of happiness as an explicit goal, were not yet fully developed. Had polls been conducted in the 1850s, they might have suggested the same kind of priorities for achievement or health, over happiness, that remain common in places like India or China today.

But one innovation, that would ultimately become emblematic of the conversion of expectations about childhood, quietly started becoming standard fare in middle-class life: the (presumably) happy birthday – directed toward children – girls and boys alike – above all. Here is another case – more specific than children’s happiness in general – where understanding innovation cuts through any assumptions of timelessness ( Pleck, 2000 ; Baselice et al., 2019 ).

For children’s birthdays are a modern invention. Royals publicly touted their birthdays in many societies, going back to the Egyptian pharaohs, as a means of promoting public attention and support. European aristocrats may have begun celebrations in the 18th century, but the emphasis was on adults as well as social privilege. The idea of singling out children depended on a much higher valuation of their individual importance than any traditional society had generated – which is why the emergence of the new practice is so revealing.

The first recorded child birthday in what was becoming the United States occurred in Boston in 1772, for the 12-year old daughter of a wealthy family. Presumably this was a way to show off the family’s wealth as well as honoring a child. As the birthday practice began to spread, very slowly, several goals were often mentioned besides the family’s material achievement: a means of encouraging young people to display gratitude and sometimes as well an opportunity for the birthday child to give little gifts to servants as a token of appreciation ( Pleck, 2000 ; Cross, 2004 ).

By the middle of the 19th century birthday celebrations were clearly becoming more common. Several manuals were written to guide the practice, one of them going through several editions. Emphasis rested on a modest party, with pastries and special fruits (commercial baking was improving at this point, thanks in part to German immigration: an obvious source of cakes). Parents would usually offer a single gift, sometimes a toy but sometimes religious or educational material. By the 1870s, when the hugely successful Ladies Home Journal was founded, women’s magazines began to feature stories about successful birthdays at least once a year, until (by 1900) the practice had become so common that guidance was no longer needed (except perhaps for encouraging parties for adults as well). By this point many African American schools were also celebrating birthdays, and there were signs of working-class and immigrant interest as well ( Prentiss, 1857 ; Barnard, 1861 ; Leslie, 1869 ; Industrial School for Colored Girls, 1916 ).

The new practice faced some opposition (as it still does today in societies were birthdays are just beginning to surface). Some religious writers worried that children would be made too prideful, that a celebration that should actually honor God, or at least one’s parents, was being distorted. While worries about consumer excess were not yet common (this would await the 20th century), some commentators criticized children who came to insist on annual festivities; the demanding child was hardly a traditional ideal ( Davenport, 1864 ; Hill, 1906 ).

But, obviously, birthdays advanced quite rapidly, clearly indicating an eagerness to highlight the individual child, and this even before the massive reduction in child mortality that would further support the practice. And the question, briefly, is why. Of course families imitated each other; undoubtedly children learned from their friends and put some quiet pressure on their parents; consumer success and opportunities to display gratitude continued to enter in. But by the 1850s all the published recommendations on birthdays, and all the comments from approving parents, stressed the role of these festivities in making children happy.

The parents and prescriptive writers who commented on birthdays and cheered them on made the basic goal very clear: birthdays were becoming important because they made children happy, and happiness in turn was quietly turning into a priority. Thus a comment in 1886 insisted that birthdays should be pleasurable, full of “rejoicing jubilees”: “a ripe, full year is a glorious thing to have had,” and for their part children, “poor little things,” “need all the fun they can get.” Schools began to pick up the celebratory theme: a Helena, Montana, high school noted “the charming custom” growing among students and teachers to acknowledge the occasion through surprise parties and small gifts. Late 19th-century etiquette writers, recommending birthday festivities, urged the occasions be “joyous, for children are easy to please” and “nothing is quite as beautiful and gratifying as a group of laughing, happy children.” Childrearing manuals, though late to the topic, echoed similar sentiments. Right after 1900 Alice Birney commended regular attention to birthdays by “makers of happy homes” because of the “pleasure and enthusiasm” that the festivities generated ( A New Idea, 1855 ; Aldrich, 1891 5 ; Gardner, 1904 ; Primary Education Journal, 1907 ; Buffalo High School Yearbook, 1925 ; Helena Independent Newspaper, 1982 ). 6

Beyond the rise of the birthday and its signal connection to aspirations for children’s happiness (and the concomitant expansion of Christmas celebrations), wider commentary on the importance of happy childhood proliferated in the early 20th century. Whereas 19th-century childrearing manuals had remained somewhat hesitant, prioritizing other goals and insisting on connecting happiness to moral behavior, popular entries after 1900 prioritized the goal with no strings attached. “Don’t forget to be indulgent; do your best to make a pleasure possible, and enter heartily into it.” To be sure, parental “readiness” to “bring happiness into your children’s lives” should be rewarded by good behavior. But happiness began to be its own goal, predicated on a belief that children’s dispositions prepared adult qualities, and was important to train people up to be cheerful ( Leach, 1993 ).

From about 1915 on, the happiness theme became truly ubiquitous. “Happiness is as essential as food if a child is to develop into normal manhood or womanhood.” Parents had a “duty” to make their offspring happy: “The purpose of bringing-up in all its phases should be to make the child as happy as possible” (italicized in the original for emphasis) ( Birney, 1905 ). “Make a child happy now and you will make him happy 20 years from now… And happiness is a great thing…It contributes to the making of a normal childhood, which is in turn the foundation of normal manhood or womanhood.” Chapters of parenting books began to be devoted explicitly to the need to promote childish happiness, even, in many accounts, as the expense of discipline. Even the rather severe behaviorist, John Watson, intoned, “Failure to bring up a happy child…falls on the parents’ shoulders” ( Stearns, 2012 ). And, symbolizing the intensification, it was in the 1920s that the song “Happy Birthday” emerged, gaining widespread popularity during the following decade. Enjoyment and nurturing of happy children had become a central feature of ideal family life but also a solemn obligation as part of preparing for successful adulthoods. Finally, the theme began to spill beyond family life, to other institutions that dealt with children. “Cheerfulness” was one of the twelve characteristics enshrined in Boy Scout Law, for example, while the Campfire Girls insisted on happiness directly. And – though this issue remains with us today – schools and teachers began to be drawn into concerns about children’s happiness as well ( Groves and Groves, 1924 ; Spalding, 1930 ; De Kok, 1935 ; Baruch, 1949 ; Gruenberg, 1968 ).

Intensification of the childhood/happiness has obviously continued into recent decades, among other things adding measurably to parental obligations. By the 1960s parents were reporting an increasing sense of obligation to play regularly with their children, as part of their commitment to sponsoring happiness. In the schools, the Social and Emotional Learning movement (another 1960s product) has gained ground, urging teachers to emphasize positivity and guard against less happy emotions. Serving the happy child continues to gain momentum ( Stearns, 2019 ).

But the main point – happy childhood as a product of recent history – deserves primary emphasis. The commitment to happy childhoods obviously builds on the precedents that had developed during the later 19th century. It connected quite explicitly to increasing hopes for happiness in life in general and to beliefs that cheerful people were more likely to win success in life. And the escalation surely benefited from the new demographic framework: with low birth rates and, now, rapidly declining child mortality, it was easier to connect the early years of life with more positive goals. Happy childhoods became part of what has been aptly described as the rise of the “priceless” child ( Zelizer, 1994 ).

Though the idea of children’s happiness emerged over time, and responded to a number of wider cultural and social changes, it must be remembered that it was a really new aspiration. The fact that most modern American, or French, or Canadian parents regard it as a normal goal, indeed a self-evident priority, should not disguise its innovative nature or, in historical terms, its relative recency. Our current assumptions have a past, responding to a changing environment.

But there is more to this historical perspective as well, including some complexities that are at least as relevant to contemporary childhood and parenting as the happiness commitment itself. The evolution of the idea of the happy child, particularly from the early 20th century onward, also highlights some of its downsides and risks. Three points stand out, all of which add to the expansion of parental obligations inherent in the modern happiness theme itself: the extent of parental responsibility: the association with consumerism; and, above all, the problem of sadness.

The first wrinkle in the surge of interest in children’s happiness, as it took shape from the early 20th century onward, was a basic question that was, however, rarely hauled out for explicit evaluation: were children naturally happy, or did parents (and other adults) have an obligation to create happiness in a more difficult terrain? Commentary on birthdays in the 19th century occasionally, as we have seen, suggested that the celebration should help compensate for a less-than-joyous stage in life. And this might touch base with more traditional ideas about the drawbacks to being a child. On the other hand, enthusiasm about childish innocence, though more modern, might emphasize children’s spontaneous gaiety and their positive contribution to a cheerful family.

Actual childrearing materials frequently suggested a mixed opinion – sometimes within a single passage. Thus from a 1920s manual: “childhood is meant to be a joyous time. In the opinion of most adults it is actually the most joyous time of life” (the dramatically modern view). But then, twenty lines down, “Nevertheless it is the province and duty of parents to make the childhood of their progeny a joyous time.” Other materials suggested that the obligations here could be quite demanding.”: “Avoid unpleasant incidents like the plague. They shake the fabric of happiness to its foundations.” Make sure that kids never go to bed sad: “Darling we are quite happy now, aren’t we? Look up and smile at mother… You know she loves you so much and wants you to be always the very happiest little boy in all the world”( O’Shea, 1920 ; Galloway, 2013 ).

Inconsistency about children’s nature, where happiness was concerned, may be built into the modern process to some extent. Many parents will have days when they can simply capitalize on a child’s good mood, and others when a tremendous amount of effort is involved. The uncertainty obviously staked out a potentially challenging obligation for adults, adding to the growing emotional list of what a good parent was responsible for: if children were not naturally happy, or when their mood turned sour, the vigilant parent needed to compensate. But uncertainties also spilled over into the other main complexities of the growing commitment to happiness.

This in turn relates to the second complexity. It was probably inevitable that interests in happy childhood became deeply connected with family consumerism. The marriage began to take clear shape early in the 20th century and it steadily intensified thereafter. The first explicit parental purchases for children date back to the late 18th century, when the focus was on the new genre of children’s books. Interest expanded in the 19th century, as in the practice of birthday gifts, but the range remained rather modest. But with the 20th century, and particularly with the rise of the toy industry, the interest in using purchases to promote children’s happiness became increasingly entrenched.

Many aspects of this intertwining are familiar enough. Shortly after 1900 many parents began to buy toys even for infants (including the soon-famous Teddy Bear). There was brief discussion of whether this kind of attachment to things was desirable in the very young, but hesitation was brief and short-lived. “Things” made children happy and prepared a life of consumer attachments, and they helped fulfill the otherwise daunting parental task of linking childhood and joy. Whole companies devoted their attention to the happiness connection: Disney, founded in the 1920s, made happiness its core theme, and later would proclaim that child-centered parks like the California Disneyland were the “happiest places in the whole world.” Not to be outdone, soon after World War II McDonalds would sell its child-focused and highly caloric burger combination as a “happy meal,” complete with cheap toys ( Cross, 2004 ).

Another post-World War II innovation pushed the linkage further. Many parents began to prepare for Christmases or birthdays by encouraging their children to draw up wish lists, which usually turned out to be quite long and detailed exercises in maximization ( Moir, 2017 ). The result? Another dilemma. As one children’s consumer expert put it: “how much do you want your child to be happy – meeting what you think are their desires?” ( Rosen, 2015 ). Against this, the sheer limits of a family budget (though sometimes transcended through the credit card) and a recurrent concern that many kids were becoming too greedy and materialistic, that they were internalizing the happiness/consumerism equation too thoroughly. Worst of all was a growing belief that children learned, if unwittingly, to play on their parents’ commitment to happiness, developing a sense of entitlement that overwhelmed any sense of gratitude ( Stearns, 2012 ).

The consumer/entertainment/happiness combine played on one final later 20th-century development: a redefinition of boredom. Boredom was a modern concept in itself: the word came into common usage only in the mid-19th century, associated obviously with the growing interest in active happiness. Initially, however, boredom applied to childhood mainly as a character lesson: children should be taught not to be boring. After 1950, however, the meaning was flipped: boredom now became a state to be blamed on others, a reason for personal discontent. And children became adept not only at identifying their boredom, but at strongly implying that their parents, or teachers, or others had an obligation to do something about it. “I’m bored” became yet another way of telling the adult world that it was falling short, for the child should be entertained ( Stearns, 2003 ; Toohey, 2011 ).

In real life, of course, most children learned to handle a bit of moderation. Wish lists were rarely fully fleshed out, and children could even survive the lack of the year’s most popular toy or game. But the dedication of part of childhood to early forms of consumerism, and the pressure on parents to fulfill part of their happiness obligations through toys and entertainments, played no small role in actual family life and, sometimes, a nagging sense of falling slightly short.

And this linked to the third complexity of happy childhoods: the inevitable tensions that resulted when confronted with the unhappy child. Not surprisingly, the relative frequency of discussing unhappy children went up rather dramatically in the 19th century (as Google Ngrams suggest), as a counterpart to the new expectations more generally. While rates dropped a bit thereafter, the topic remained vivid, encouraged by growing interest in, and claims by, child psychologists and other experts. Two outcomes seem pretty obvious. First, of course, the unhappy child (or the period of unhappiness), whether directly experienced or not, was a cautionary tale for parents themselves: something must have gone wrong, some adult must have failed in her duties, for this to have emerged. The facile association of unhappy childhoods and parental dereliction (and often, resultant unhappy adulthoods) became a conversational and literary staple by the mid-20th century, particularly amid the popularization of Freudian psychology ( Ludy, 2007 ). And second, when the unhappy child was encountered there was a risk of exculpatory diagnosis: the child must be unhappy because of some psychological disorder, the unhappiness a sign of some kind of illness, beyond the responsibility of good parents. It became harder to accept or even understand the sad child ( Berman, 2016 ).

Historical value judgments are never easy, particularly since by definition we are trapped in our own contemporary standards. It is hard not to believe that, for all the complexities involved, the emergence of the idea of happy children was an advance over earlier frameworks – which is one reason that the idea of children’s happiness has spread geographically as part of globalization (though without yet creating uniform agreement). But, inevitably, since we are enmeshed in the happiness culture it is hard to evaluate it against past patterns.

Certainly, there are the downsides, which the historical approach, cutting through any assumption that the idea of happy childhood is a natural human concept, helps highlight as well. It becomes too easy to overdo the happiness card, whether the result is undue accumulation of childish junk or the difficulty of appreciating periods of childish sadness. It is easy to complicate the actual achievement of normal happiness by expecting too much, by reacting to quickly to emotional lows. As it emerged from the 19th century onward, the assumption that children should be cheerful as part of the child’s contribution to the happy family can be genuinely burdensome, just as the assumption places obligations on parents as well. The realization that much of this is a recent historical product, which might be open to some reconsideration or modification, can be constructive. Not a few experts are joining in urging greater nuance and flexibility about the childhood/happiness association.

There is one final point. We began this essay by noting the premium that Western parents, when polled, place on children’s happiness. But of course happiness is not the only thing we want, and it is even possible that our cultural standards prompt us to claim a higher priority than we really mean. Contemporary Americans certainly do not want unhappy children, but the classic helicopter parent, this creature of the past quarter century, may actually be more focused on achievement than we explicitly recognize – however, parentally orchestrated that achievement may be. Recent analysis that suggests how successful many middle-class parents have become in positioning their children for college and beyond, in a newly demanding economic environment, may complicate the happiness equation: these parents want to think their offspring are happy, but they are orchestrating other goals ( Druckerman, 2019 ). The extent to which middle-class American parents are unusually focused on the importance of hard work, compared to European counterparts, certainly raises some questions about actual priorities, despite lip service to the hope for childish joy ( Doepke and Zilibotti, 2019 ). The happiness standard will surely prompt the demanding parent to bursts of indulgence, often with a strong consumer component, and probably some real guilt about not succeeding as consistently on the happiness front as we would like.

The relatively modern conversion to the notion that children should be happy added important criteria to the ways many American parents evaluated their own performance and clearly helped motivate changes in actual interactions with children, including the growing commitment to consumerism. It affected people’s evaluations of their own childhoods, and could affect children directly as well, as in the injunctions to be cheerful. But, as several recent studies of happiness suggest, the results in terms of actual happiness and well being are harder to assess: expectations could be raised beyond reasonable hope of fulfillment, and signs of occasional sadness might become harder to handle ( Ahmeds, 2010 ). Add into this the pressures for achievement and success, so vivid in the current generation of middle-class teenagers, and the evaluation of actual outcomes, as opposed to professed goals, becomes undeniably complicated.

Author Contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

^ In contrast, youth, though never systematically empowered, might be valued. Greek and other cultures celebrated the beauty and athletic prowess of youth. Artisanal arrangements in many societies – Europe, Japan, the Middle East cherished a few relatively carefree years between apprenticeship and full adulthood. But childhood was a different matter.
^ Huizinga’s Homo Ludens mounts a particularly detailed case for children’s play in traditional societies.
^ Google Ngram Viewer is a search application that allows one to measure the relative frequency of particular terms or words in the Google Books database. While in some ways problematic and obviously not a complete representation, the tool is a helpful way to assess cultural trends and changes.
^ These early Victorian manuals interestingly combine the emphasis on childish innocence with continued insistence on obedience with rarely if ever a bow to happiness.
^ Aldrich also writes of taking “personal note” of each student on the birthday.
^ As noted above, the American Journal of Education had been recommending birthdays since the 1860s.

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Keywords : happy children, childhood, emotions history, American culture, childrearing, happiness

Citation: Stearns PN (2019) Happy Children: A Modern Emotional Commitment. Front. Psychol. 10:2025. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02025

Received: 16 April 2019; Accepted: 19 August 2019; Published: 06 September 2019.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2019 Stearns. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Peter N. Stearns, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Happiness in Children

Introduction, characteristics of happiness in children.

Quantitative Analyses
Qualitative Analyses
Mixed Methods
Spirituality and Religiosity
Socioeconomic Status and Poverty
School Conditions and Living Environment
Child Predictors of Adult Happiness
Student-Teacher Rapport
Peer Relations
Parent Relations
Cross-Cultural Studies of Happiness in Children Living Outside of North America and Europe
Gratitude and Kindness
Active Leisure and Physical Activity
Mindfulness

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Forthcoming articles expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section.

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Happiness in Children by Kaitlyn Dickie , Mark D. Holder , John-Tyler Binfet LAST REVIEWED: 26 July 2017 LAST MODIFIED: 26 July 2017 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0188

This article was developed to facilitate access to research on happiness and subjective well-being (SWB) in children aged 5 to 12 years old. Articles are thematically organized into seven distinct sections: (1) characteristics of happiness, including temperament, character strengths (e.g., hope, love, optimism, and zest), friendships (e.g., who children identify as their best friend and whether or not the friendship is reciprocated), and popularity and attractiveness (e.g., how children perceive themselves and how they are perceived by other children); (2) measures of subjective well-being, including uni-dimensional and multidimensional scales and self-report measures, reviews of measurement instruments, development of measurement scales, and comparative analyses of measurement scales; (3) correlates of happiness, including spirituality and religiosity (e.g., praying, believing in a higher power, and attending a religious institution), socioeconomic status and poverty, and school conditions and living environment (e.g., student-teacher rapport, learning conditions, supportive friendships at school, and home environment); (4) early childhood predictors of well-being in adulthood such as social connectedness (how close children feel to their friends, family, and community, and how children’s social connections and relationships will influence their well-being later on), academic achievement (e.g., how satisfied children are with their academic achievement and how their academic performance in childhood will affect their well-being as an adult), and living in remote locations (e.g., how the location of their childhood homes can impact their well-being later in life); (5) children’s social relations (e.g., student-teacher relations, peer-relations, and parent-relations) with emphasis on how much support children receive from their varied social relationships; (6) happiness in children around the world, including measurement scales’ applicability across races, how children in underdeveloped countries differentially value specific life domains (e.g., family, self, environment, social, and friends), and whether having children participate centrally in research (i.e., viewing the child as an expert rather than simply a unit of analysis) increases our understanding of children’s well-being in different cultural contexts; and (7) positive psychology interventions developed to enhance happiness and SWB in children including those that focus on gratitude (e.g., gratitude lists and gratitude letters), kindness (e.g., planned acts of helping or sharing), leisure activities (both active and passive), physical activity (e.g., counting steps and participating in recreational or extracurricular activities), and mindfulness (e.g., mindful yoga practice and Tai-Chi). It is hoped that this article will facilitate access to empirical work for researchers and practitioners seeking to better understand the complexities of childhood happiness.

This section is composed of eight studies that focus on characteristics that describe children with high levels of happiness, subjective well-being, and life satisfaction. Holder and Coleman 2007 ; Holder and Klassen 2009 ; Huebner 1991 ; Park and Peterson 2006 ; and Tian, et al. 2015 focus on aspects of temperament and personality (e.g., character strengths, prosocial behavior, extraversion, and self-esteem) in relation to children’s happiness. Froh, et al. 2009 and Irma 2014 examine the effects of social relationships on happiness and subjective well-being. Lastly, Dinisman and Ben-Arieh 2015 assess sociodemographic variables (e.g., country of residence, self-reported socioeconomic items, and demographic characteristics) and subjective well-being in children.

Dinisman, T., and A. Ben-Arieh. “The Characteristics of Children’s Subjective Well-Being.” Social Indicators Resolution 126 (2015): 555–569.

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-015-0921-x

Relations between sociodemographic variables (gender, age, self-reported socioeconomic items [e.g., access to a home computer], and country of residence [i.e., native-born or non-native born]) and children’s subjective well-being (SWB) were assessed. Three scales (overall life satisfaction, overall satisfaction in specific domains, and overall subjective well-being) were used. Country of residence accounted for the largest amount of variance in the children’s SWB of any single variable (6–13 percent), and together the sociodemographic variables accounted for 11–20 percent of the variance.

Froh, J. J., C. Yurkewicz, and T. B. Kashdan. “Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Early Adolescence: Examining Gender Differences.” Journal of Adolescence 32 (2009): 633–650.

DOI: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2008.06.006

The benefits of experiencing and expressing gratitude were examined in relation to subjective well-being, social relationships, prosocial behavior, physical symptoms, gender, and family support. Though gender failed to significantly moderate the relation between gratitude, subjective well-being, and physical symptoms, it was found to moderate the effects of gratitude on family support. Results indicated that gratitude had significant effects on physical symptoms (β = −0.162) and relational fulfillment (β = 0.332).

Holder, M. D., and B. Coleman. “The Contribution of Temperament, Popularity, and Physical Appearance to Children’s Happiness.” Journal of Happiness Studies 9 (2007): 279–302.

DOI: 10.1007/s10902-007-9052-7

Personality, popularity, and appearance were examined in relation to children’s happiness assessed with self-report and other-report (i.e., the children’s parents and teachers). Temperament traits related to extraversion correlated negatively with happiness whereas traits related to extraversion were correlated positively. Additionally, children’s status relative to their peers and their physical attractiveness were correlated with their well-being, but demographic variables were not associated with children’s happiness.

Holder, M. D., and A. Klassen. “Temperament and Happiness in Children.” Journal of Happiness Studies 11 (2009): 419–439.

DOI: 10.1007/s10902-009-9149-2

Relations between children’s temperaments are reported to be the strongest predictors of their happiness; the temperament trait akin to extraversion (i.e., sociability) is positively correlated with happiness, and the temperament trait akin to neuroticism (i.e., emotionality) is negatively correlated with happiness. In general, children who were more social and active were happier and children who were more shy, emotional, and anxious were less happy.

Huebner, E. S. “Correlates of Life Satisfaction in Children.” School Psychology Quarterly 6 (1991): 103–111.

DOI: 10.1037/h0088805

Children’s global life satisfaction was found to be positively correlated with self-esteem, extraversion, internal locus of control, and school achievements, and negatively correlated with anxiety, neuroticism, and external locus of control. Demographics and objective circumstance (e.g., parents’ occupational status, socioeconomic status) were not found to affect children’s well-being; self-perception, however, was a determining variable for global satisfaction.

Irma, E. “In Pursuit of Happiness: How Some Young South African Children Construct Happiness.” Journal of Psychology in Africa 18 (2014): 81–87.

DOI: 10.1080/14330237.2008.10820174

This qualitative design used semi-structured interviews to assess children’s conceptualizations of happiness. Three key themes were identified and included: relationships (e.g., friends and family), recreation (e.g., sports, vacations), and attainment of material possessions (e.g., gifts and money). Surprisingly, though none of the questionnaires referred to significant others, children predominantly conceptualized happiness as a reflection of relationships.

Park, N., and C. Peterson. “Characters Strengths and Happiness among Young Children: Content Analysis of Parental Descriptions.” Journal of Happiness Studies 7 (2006): 323–341.

DOI: 10.1007/s10902-005-3648-6

The relation between the character strengths identified in the Values in Action Questionnaire and happiness in children was discussed. The researchers hypothesized that strengths requiring psychosocial development (i.e., zest, gratitude, hope, and love) would be associated with happiness in children just as they are in adults. Results indicated that love (r = 0.31), hope (r = 0.12), and zest (r = 0.31) were significantly correlated with happiness. Gratitude was found to be uncommon among children in this study.

Tian, L., M. Du, and S. E. Huebner. “The Effect of Gratitude on Elementary School Students’ Subjective Well-Being in Schools: The Mediating Role of Prosocial Behaviour.” Social Indicators Research 122 (2015): 887–904.

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-014-0712-9

The meditating role of prosocial behavior (PB) on the relation between gratitude and subjective well-being (SWB) (school satisfaction [SS], positive affect [PA], and negative affect [NA]) in children was examined. SWB predicted gratitude and SS. PB partially mediated the relation between gratitude and SS and gratitude and PA, but did not mediate the relation between gratitude and NA. Gender mediated the relation between gratitude and SS, and PA mediated the relation between gratitude and SWB overall.

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Children and happiness

What makes children happy? Toys? Friends? Dr. Michelle de Haan discusses the relationship between children and happiness

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Happiness pictured by 6 year-old Piers from Silverstone Infants School

What makes children happy? ‘That’s easy,' you might say, ‘a new toy, an ice cream or a trip to the amusement park.’ While these things bring an immediate smile to many children’s faces, they are probably not the things that will keep them happy day by day, or turn them into happy adults.

Even though we might all like to know the key to happiness, there is actually relatively little psychological research on this topic. In the past psychologists have tended to focus on how disorders involving negative mood can be prevented rather than how happiness can be achieved. However, more recently psychologists, notably Professor Martin Seligman, have developed what they call ‘positive psychology’: the study of happiness and well-being.

One somewhat surprising finding is that research disproves the common notion that being rich makes people happy. While it is true that living under very deprived circumstances is related to being unhappy, once people’s income exceeds the poverty level further increases in wealth do not lead to corresponding increases in happiness. One example to illustrate this point is that, if wealth did lead to happiness, we might expect people in today’s society to be much happier than in the past decades as we are earning much more. However, studies across the globe have shown that, in spite of great increases in income since the 1950s and 1960s, levels of happiness have remained pretty much the same.

Why have these improvements in life circumstances not resulted in lasting changes in happiness? There seem to be two reasons why wealth does not lead to any lasting change in happiness. One is people’s changing aspirations: once you have more, you also want more. The other reason is social comparison: once you see what other people have you are less satisfied with your own possessions. This last point is well put by Marx: ‘A house may be large or small; as long as the surrounding houses are equally small, it satisfies social demands for a dwelling. But if a palace rises beside the little house, the little house shrinks into a hut.' These same reasons might partly be why the happiness of the child’s new toy is often short-lived!

Instead of wealth leading to happiness, research time and again has shown that good relationships are necessary for lasting happiness. This brings us directly to children, because children’s relationships with their parents (or other primary caregivers) are the starting point for happiness. Professor John Bowlby, a pioneer in the study of parent-child attachment, believed that this relationship has enormous influence in shaping a child’s self-esteem, her expectations of other people and view of the world in general.

Professor Mary Ainsworth was the first to develop a way of formally classifying the different types of relationships that exist between parents and children. Her test, called the ‘Strange Situation’, involves observing toddlers’ reactions during a series of separations and reunions with the parent. Securely attached toddlers protest when the parent leaves but are quickly comforted when they return, whereas insecurely attached infants continue to cry or avoid the parent when they return. Prof. Ainsworth’s own work, and that by others using the Strange Situation, shows that securely attached toddlers typically go on to have more positive, less troublesome relationships than insecurely attached toddlers, including relationships with friends, with romantic partners, and even their own future children. A happy note is that having a bad childhood does not necessarily doom children to repeat the same negative pattern with their own children. If a parent has reflected on their bad childhood, attempting to make sense of past events, they are less likely to repeat the same negative pattern.

While relationships are extremely important for children’s happiness, another important ingredient is called mastery. This means that children are happy when they have something they are ‘good at’, and when their family and other important people in their lives notice and appreciate these skills. However, children should not be so focused on goals that they feel their happiness depends directly on achieving them. For example, a child who enjoys playing football for the game is likely to be made happier by the experience than one who can only feel happy if the team achieves a win. The tendency to feel that happiness is dependent on achieving particular goals is called ‘conditional goal setting’—‘If I score a goal in the game, then I will be happy’. This is a style of thinking that is associated with depression in both children and adults.

Up until now we have been considering how life events and circumstances contribute to happiness. However it is important to keep in mind that a large part, perhaps even more than half, is dictated by genetic factors. For example, studies have found that siblings who were raised in different families show striking similarities in the level of happiness, whereas unrelated children living in the same families do not. These types of findings may partly be attributable to the link between personality, known to be quite heritable, and happiness: people with extroverted personalities tend to be happier than those with more introverted, ‘neurotic’ personalities.

Research does show that some basic aspects of the brain circuits involved in emotion are in place from very early in life. Professor Richard Davidson, an expert in the brain bases of emotion, has shown that people whose brains are more active in the left frontal area tend to be more positive, outgoing, and smile more; by contrast people who show the opposite pattern of more activity in the right tend to report more negative thoughts, be more shy, and smile less. While this basic pattern can change as peoples’ feelings change from moment to moment during the day, it is estimated that about 60% of the variation between adults reflects the stable characteristics of the person.

Professor Davidson and his colleague Professor Nathan Fox have shown that a similar relationship between brain activity and emotion is seen even in newborns. They gave newborns either a sweet taste or a sour taste to induce positive or negative emotions, and then measured brain activation using the electroencephalogram (EEG). Newborns showed greater left frontal brain activation while smiling for the sweet taste but greater right frontal activation when showing disgust for the sour taste. Studies of older infants show the same type of results: at 10 months of age infants displaying right frontal brain activation are more likely to cry when their mother leaves than those displaying left frontal activation.

Do these types of studies mean that a child’s level of happiness is ‘set’ from the very beginning of life? The answer to this question seems to be ‘no’ - as we saw earlier on, life events and circumstances contribute as well. Moreover, particularly during development, the aspects of happiness reflected in the EEG measures are changeable. For example, when Professor Fox and his colleagues followed up a group of children who had shown high levels of shyness and right frontal activation at 9 months of age, they found that some of the children continued to show the right frontal pattern at 14 months and continued to be quite shy even at 4 years. However, some showed a shift to a more left frontal pattern at 14 months of age and were less shy by 4 years. While this study does not tell us what factors led some children to remain very shy and others to become less shy, it does suggest that it is possible to change a child’s basic emotional outlook. Interestingly, children themselves are quite optimistic about changing the negative: while 5 to 6 year-olds feel it is quite hard to change negative physical traits, they feel it is quite easy to change negative psychological traits (e.g., being very shy/fearful). This optimism seems to diminish by 7 to 10 years of age however, as children, like adults, come to believe that negative psychological traits are relatively difficult to change.

What, then, makes children happy? In the long term, the basic ingredients that make children happy during childhood seem to be the same ones that help them to become happy adults: a secure relationship with parents gives the base to confidently explore the world and develop a sense of mastery and recognition, all important components in the recipe for happiness. However, in the short term, the new toy might provide a smile too!

Further Reading Well-being and affective style: Neural substrates and biobehavioral correlates from Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London R J Davidson Happy Child, happy adult: The childhood routes of adult happiness E M Hallowell

The pursuit of happiness from Scientific American , 274 D G Myers & F Diener

The Optimistic Child M E P Seligman, K Reivich, L Jaycox and J Gillham

From the web: EEG asymmetry

Attachment theory

Positive Psychology Centre

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Originally published: Sunday, 4 July 2010
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Childhood Essay

Childhood is one of the most beautiful phases of human life. It is a time of discovery and exploration. At this stage, we learn about the world and ourselves. As kids, we understand life as an endless adventure with infinite possibilities. When we grow up, our worlds broaden. It is important to create a healthy and happy childhood. The easiest way to do this is by providing the best upbringing possible.

Moreover, childhood is a time of innocence and wonder. Activities such as playing, exploring, and simply being a kid are special because they are all a part of the carefree nature of childhood.

Children are constantly learning new things about themselves and the world around them. This childhood essay covers the importance of well-being, mental health, and nutrition to kids to help parents better understand their children and what they need to do to protect them.

Childhood is a period of physical and intellectual growth, hence it is an important period of a child’s development. The period can be regarded as a means of cultural construction whereby all things influenced by the child are constructed as being innocent, different from adults.

Importance of Childhood

During children’s early years, they grow and change rapidly. They need to be nurtured and loved by those around them, whom they trust for this time to be successful. It is also important to have a healthy childhood for better mental health lifelong.

As children grow, they learn about themselves and their surroundings. Early childhood is the time to develop good habits that will shape them for life. They need healthy meals, exercise, fresh air, and plenty of love to grow into resilient adults who can handle any situation.

Childhood is the time when kids develop their personalities and tastes. It is also when they need to be exposed to different experiences to grow up to be mature adults. The importance of childhood shouldn’t be overlooked because this is where kids learn, explore, and build memories.

Memories of Childhood

We all have memories from our childhood that we cherish. It’s a time in our life when everything seemed perfect and wonderful. The most memorable things about childhood were holidays, birthdays, school days and vacations. Our parents did their best to make these special occasions special for us, ensuring we had plenty of delicious sweets, good friends, family time and doing something that captured our attention.

My childhood memories are the best part of my life. I remember when I used to play in the nearby park with my parents and sisters, when I had ice cream, or when playing in the hidden garden in our backyard. Every memory is etched in my heart and mind for eternity.

I always looked forward to the summer holidays. Going to the beach near my grandmother’s house was what I usually did. It used to be so hot outside, and it was the perfect way for me to relax while reading a book in the sun.

I was so excited to have the summer vacation because I love spending time with my friends and doing all of the things that we always talked about. We used to go to the movies, and my uncle drove us around town or just stayed out in the backyard.

Also, our winter vacation used to be fun, and our family used to have a get-together. All my cousins used to come to our house. Once, we built a snowman and named it Goofy. Goofy was our best friend who listened to our secrets.

To know more about childhood memories, click on BYJU’S childhood memories essay . Find more essays, worksheets, puzzles, etc., on our website.

Frequently Asked Questions on Childhood Essay

What is your favourite childhood memory.

One of my favourite memories from my childhood was spending the summers at my grandparents’ house. I used to go to the beach at my grandparent’s house. During summer, it is the perfect way for me to relax while reading a book in the sun.

Why is childhood important to kids?

Childhood is important because it is the phase where kids develop their personalities and tastes. They are also exposed to different experiences to grow up to be mature adults. Childhood is the time when kids learn, explore, and build memories.

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How to Recover from a Happy Childhood

Rivka Galchen with her brother and her father in front of house and against car.

Recovering from a happy childhood can take a long time. It’s not often that I’m suspected of having had one. I grew up in Norman, Oklahoma, a daughter of immigrants. When I showed up at college and caught sight of other childhoods, I did pause and think: Why didn’t we grow our own tomatoes? Why did I watch so many episodes of “I Dream of Jeannie”? Who is Hermes? What is lacrosse? Was my childhood a dud? An American self-inspection was set in motion. Having lived for more than forty-five years, I finally understand how happy my childhood was.

One might assume that my mother is to blame for this happiness, but I think my father has the stronger portion to answer for, though I only had the chance to know him for seventeen years before he died unexpectedly. He was an extoller of childhood, generally. I recall his saying to me once that the first eighteen years of life are the most meaningful and eventful, and that the years after that, even considered all together, can’t really compare.

The odd corollary was that he spoke very rarely of his own childhood. Maybe he didn’t want to brag. Even if he had told me more, I most likely wouldn’t have listened properly or understood much, because, like many children, I spent my childhood not really understanding who my parents were or what they were like. Though I collected clues. Century plants sometimes bloom after a decade, sometimes after two or three decades. I saw one in bloom recently, when my eight-year-old daughter pointed it out to me. I’m forty-six now, and much that my father used to say and embody has, after years of dormancy, begun to reveal itself in flower.

Growing up, I considered my father to be intelligent and incapable. Intelligent, because he had things to say about the Bosporus and the straits of Dardanelles. Incapable, because he ate ice cream from the container with a fork, and also he never sliced cheese, or used a knife in any way—instead, he tore things, like a caveman. Interestingly, he once observed that he didn’t think he would have lasted long as a caveman. This was apropos of nothing I could follow. He often seemed to assume that others were aware of the unspoken thoughts in his head which preceded speech. Maybe because his hearing was poor. He sat about two feet away from the television, with the volume on high. He also wore thick bifocal glasses. (In the seventies and early eighties, he wore tinted thick bifocal glasses.) The reason he wouldn’t have lasted long as a caveman, he said, was that his vision and his hearing meant that he would have been a poor hunter. “Either I would have died early on or maybe I would never have been born at all,” he said. The insight made him wistful.

If I had met my father as a stranger, I would have guessed him to be Siberian, or maybe Mongolian. He was more than six feet tall. His head was large and wide. His eyes seemed small behind his glasses. His wrists were delicate. I could encircle them, even with my child hands. His hair was silky, black, and wavy. He and my mother argued regularly about cutting his hair: she wanted to cut it; he wanted it to stay as it was. He was heavy the whole time I knew him, but he didn’t seem heavy to me. He seemed correctly sized. When he placed his hand atop my head, I felt safe, but also slightly squashed. He once asked me to punch his abdomen and tell him if it was muscular or soft. That was my only encounter with any vanity in him.

It would have been difficult for him if he had been vain, because he didn’t buy any of his own clothes, or really anything, not even postage stamps. Whenever there were clearance sales at the Dillard’s at the Sooner Fashion Mall, my mom and I would page through the folded button-up shirts, each in its cardboard sleeve, the way other kids must have flipped through LPs at record stores. We were looking for the rare and magical neck size of 17.5. If we found it, we bought it, regardless of the pattern. Button-ups were the only kind of shirts he wore, apart from the Hanes undershirts he wore beneath them. Even when he went jogging, he wore these button-ups, which would become soaked through with sweat. He thought it was amusing when I called him a sweatbomb, though I was, alas, aware that it was a term I had not invented. He appeared to think highly of almost anything I and my brother said or did.

He had a belt, and only one belt. It was a beige Izod belt, made of woven material for most of its length, and of leather for the buckle-and-clasp area. My dad wore this belt every day. Every day the alligator was upside down. How could it be upside down so consistently? He said that it was because he was left-handed. What did that have to do with anything? He showed me how he started with the belt oriented “correctly,” and held it in his left hand. But then, somehow, in the process of methodically threading it through his belt loops, it ended upside down. His demonstration was like watching a Jacob’s-ladder toy clatter down, wooden block by wooden block.

I loved Jacob’s ladders as a kid, I think because it took me so long to understand how they produced their illusion. And I also loved the story of Jacob’s ladder in the Bible, which was similarly confusing. Jacob dreams of a ladder between Heaven and earth, with angels going up and down it. Another night, Jacob wrestles with an angel, or with God, and to me this part also seemed to be as if in a dream, though we were meant to understand that Jacob’s hip was injured in real life. This is not Biblical scholarship, but I had the sense—from where? My Jewish education in Norman can perhaps best be summarized by the fact that my brother’s bar mitzvah is the only bar mitzvah I have attended—that Jacob was the brainy brother and Esau was the good hunter, with the hairy arms, and Jacob had stolen Esau’s birthright blessing by putting a hairy pelt on his arm and impersonating Esau before his father, Isaac, who was going blind. And yet we were supposed to be cheering for Jacob. And Jacob’s mother, Rivka—that was me!—had been the orchestrator of it all. What a sneak. Though it was also a classic story of a household that appeared to be run by the dad but, for more important purposes, was run by the mom.

My dad loved arguments. If he had been a different kind of man—more of an Esau—he probably would have loved a brawl, too. He sought out arguments, especially at work, where arguing was socially acceptable, since it was considered good science, and my father was a scientist. Fighting was a big pastime in my family, more broadly. Our motto for our road-trip vacations was: We pay money to fight. I remember once breaking down in tears and complaining that my mom, my dad, my brother—they all fought with one another. But no one ever wanted to fight with me. I was the youngest by six years.

I did not call my dad Dad but, rather, Tzvi, his first name, which is the Hebrew word for deer. I assume that my older brother started this. As best as I can deduce, Tzvi went to bed at about 4 A.M. and woke up at about 10 or 11 A.M. It was therefore my mom who made me breakfast—two Chessmen cookies and a cup of tea—and packed my lunch, and drove me to school, and bought my clothes, and did the laundry, and cleaned the house, and did all that for my brother and my dad, too, and did everything, basically, including have her own job. But if I thought about who I wanted to be when I grew up, and who I thought I was most like—it was my dad. My dad slept on many pillows, which I found comical and princess-like. (When I was twenty-three and in medical school, I realized that this was a classic sign of congestive heart failure.) He was a professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, though arguably he was better known as a regular at the Greek House, a gyro place run by a Greek family which sold a gyro, French fries, and salad for less than five dollars. My dad was beloved there, as he was in many places, because he gave people the feeling that he liked them and was interested in what they had to say, and he gave people this feeling because he did like them and was interested in what they had to say.

My father had a Ph.D. in applied mathematics, though it had been obtained in a school of geosciences, and so he had been required at some point to acquire competence in geology and maybe something else. He had grown up in a moshav, a collective-farming village, in Israel. The few photographs of him as a child are of him feeding chickens; of him proud alongside a large dog; of him seated in front of an open book with his parents beside him. His mother’s name was Rivka, and she died before I was born. When one of my partner’s sons saw a photo of her, in black-and-white, he thought that it was a picture of me.

Although my dad didn’t say much about his childhood, he did speak, more than once and with admiration, about a donkey from his childhood, named Chamornicus, that was very stubborn. The name, which is old-fashioned slang, translates, approximately, to “my beloved donkey,” but my dad used it when someone was being intransigent. My dad admired stubbornness, especially of the unproductive kind. He once took my brother on a four-week trip to China and Japan. My dad had work conferences to attend. My brother was sixteen or so at the time. My dad took my brother to a bridge that Marco Polo had crossed and said something to the effect of “Isn’t it amazing to think that Marco Polo crossed this same bridge?” And my brother said, “What do I care?” My dad was amused and impressed. My dad also cited with great pride my brother’s insistence on eating at McDonald’s or Shakey’s Pizza while they were in Japan. “He stuck with his guns,” he said, with his characteristic mild mangling of cliché. My dad had a gift for being amused, and for liking people. He was particularly proud of saying, of the anti-immigrant, anti-N.E.A. politician Pat Robertson, “He doesn’t like me, but I like him.” And even when he genuinely disliked, or even hated, people, he enjoyed coming up with nicknames for them. I learned the names of dictators through my parents’ discussions of people nicknamed Mussolini, Idi Amin, and Ceauşescu. He had gentler nicknames for my friends: the Huguenot, Pennsylvania Dutch, and, for a friend with a Greek dad, Kazantzakis.

I said that I was never involved in the household arguments, but I do remember one fight with my dad. He told me a story about something he’d done that day, and I was appalled. He wouldn’t tell a student of his what a herring was. It was a problem on an exam, about herring and water currents. The course was in fluid dynamics. Many of my father’s students came from China. Their English was excellent. But apparently this particular student was unfamiliar with the word “herring.” A deceptive word: it looks like a gerund but isn’t.

My father, who learned English as an adult and would put a little “x” in our home dictionary next to any word he had looked up, and whose work answering-machine message promised to return calls “as soon as feasible,” was, at the time of the herring incident, unfamiliar with the word “cheesy,” having recently asked me to define it for him. He was also accustomed to having students complain about his accent in their teaching evaluations. All that, and still my dad expressed no sympathy for this student. “It’s part of the exam,” my father said that he told the student, as if the line were in the penultimate scene of “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.” My dad had a weakness for narrating moments in which, as he saw it, he dared to speak the truth. One of his favorite films was “High Noon”; this paired well with another favorite of his, “ Rashomon .” In one, there’s good and evil; in the other, a tangle of both that can never be unravelled.

I now see that he must have doubted himself in this herring incident, though. Otherwise, why was he telling me the story? I said—with the moral confidence of youth—that he should have told the student what a herring was, that it was an exam on fluid dynamics, not on fish. And I told him that I thought what he had done was mean. We had a pretty long argument about it. But my father stuck with his guns. He said, “When you go through life, you’ll understand that, if you don’t know what a herring is, people don’t tell you. You have to know it yourself.”

I should say that I have, through the years, received notes now and again from students who loved my father. One woman wrote me that his encouragement saved her career when she was thinking of giving up. Some of his students were Chinese dissidents, one had been a journalist, and my dad had helped these students get visas to come over. Shortly after my father died, a student of his from Brazil invited us to his home for dinner. He wanted to tell us how much my father had meant to him. What I really remember about that dinner was the man telling my mother and me that it was difficult for his wife to live in Norman, because in Norman no one tells you that you’re beautiful. “Not at the grocery store. Not at the hardware store. Not on the street. Nowhere! So that is hard for her,” he concluded.

Older couple talking about their car propped up on cement blocks

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Students complained not only about my dad’s Tzvinglish but also about his handwriting. His accent was very heavy in part because he couldn’t hear well, so his speech was more like what he had read than like what he had heard. But his accent could have been managed if he had had decent handwriting. He was a lefty, from an era before lefties were celebrated, and maybe this had something to do with his terrible handwriting. When he wrote on a notepad, he pressed down with his ballpoint pen so hard that you could see the imprint clearly even several pages beneath, and I often stared at those indentations, which for me had the mesmerizing power of hieroglyphs. Maybe this was what he didn’t want to, or couldn’t, translate for his students—something of making your way in the world when you are, by nature, not really the kind of person who makes his way in the world. Maybe the herring was a red herring. When I went to college, I always praised my foreign grad-student T.A.s to the moon and back.

One fight I remember, because my father did not enjoy it, was about what kind of car he should get when the old one broke down. For years, he drove an enormous used beige Chevy Caprice Classic, which fit all of us plus relatives for long road trips. My dad wanted to replace it with a Jeep with no doors. He had always, he said, wanted a Jeep with no doors. We got a Subaru station wagon.

At about 7 P.M. or so, most nights, I would hear my father pull into the driveway with the station wagon that he wished were a Jeep with no doors. It would then be about forty-five minutes before he entered the house. What was he doing out there? He said that he was organizing. He took seriously all the dials and indicators in the car—the mileage, the warnings, the details of the owner’s manual. He was often going through his hard-shelled Samsonite briefcase again as well.

But also forty-five minutes was, I think, his atom of time, the span of shortest possible duration. It took forty-five minutes to brush and floss his teeth. Forty-five minutes to shave. And forty-five minutes, minimum, to bathe. Forty-five minutes between saying, “I’m almost ready to go,” and going. He, and therefore we, were often late.

These forty-five-minute intervals were because, I think, he did everything while thinking about something else. He lived inside a series of dreams, and each dream could admit only one pedestrian task into its landscape. He often spoke of the life of the mind. He wished for my brother and me that we could enjoy a life of the mind. But, as with many phrases, I think my dad used “the life of the mind” in his own way. He never, for example, urged us to read Foucault, or Socrates, or, really, any books. Those forty-five-minute blocks of daydreams were, I think, closer to what he meant by the life of the mind. They were about idly turning over this or that, or maybe also about imagining yourself as Marco Polo. They were about enjoying being alone, and in your thoughts. That’ll slow you down.

It also took my dad a long time to fall asleep. He managed this by watching reruns of detective shows that came on late at night. He sat in a dining-room chair, close to the television in the living room, not while reclining on his three or four or five pillows in bed. I would sleep on the sofa in the living room, rather than in my own bed, because I didn’t like going to sleep in my room alone. My dad particularly loved “ Columbo ,” with Peter Falk. Also, a show with a large balding man called Cannon. And “The Rockford Files,” with James Garner. Garner was from Norman. It was known that he was related to my elementary-school principal, Dr. Bumgarner. He was so beloved, a dream of a man—both the actor and the principal. Later, when I was older, there was a new show, “Crazy Like a Fox,” that would come on before the reruns. It starred a father-and-son detective team: the dad was kooky and couldn’t be restrained; the son was practical. Together, they could solve anything. Sometimes I slept through the shows, dimly registering their high-volume presence. At other times I watched them, but while lying down. It was essential that I fall asleep before “ The Twilight Zone ” reruns came on, because a whole night of sleep would be ruined if I accidentally saw an episode in which there was a fourth dimension in a closet, or a character who discovered that he could pause time.

Until I was at least ten, my dad helped me fall asleep every night. He sang lullabies about boats going out to sea and never returning. He told stories, one of which was about an extremely tiny child, small enough to fit into a soda bottle, and one day, when a wolf comes and eats up all the other normal-sized siblings, the tiny sibling is there to tell the mother what happened, so that she can cut open the wolf’s stomach and retrieve her children, and they then all have the tiniest child to thank for their survival. My daughter is familiar with this story through years of being indoctrinated about the special powers of littleness.

I’m now as old as my dad was when he was a dad, staying up, transitioning into restfulness by watching those shows. Why was my dreamy dad such a fan of detective shows? The only other shows I remember him liking were political-argument shows, “Jeeves and Wooster,” and, for some reason that I have yet to unpack, “The Jewel in the Crown.” Was it because those detectives shrugged into dangerous situations coolly? Because they always said the right thing? Ultimately, they were men of action. They could easily have handled a Jeep with no doors. Maybe they were the ideal avatars for a man devoted to the life of the mind. Not that the shows were a consolation prize for having “no life.” It wasn’t like that. The life of the mind wasn’t no life—it was life. And great battlefields were plentiful. When my brother had a mild conflict with his high-school calculus teacher over a midterm grade, my dad gave him Churchill’s speech about fighting on the beaches and never surrendering. If I had the urge to step back from a just conflict, my dad would remind me that Chamberlain had a choice between war and shame, and that he chose shame but got war later. If you heard my dad humming something, it was probably the “Toreador Song,” by Bizet, or Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”

I remember a battle he assisted me with. One day, when my brother brought home a soccer trophy, I started to cry. I had never won anything. (If only I had spent my childhood crying less and fighting more!) When the fifth-grade track meet came around, I was set to compete in the one event that had only four competitors—the unpopular distance event. The distance was half a mile. If I could run faster than even one of the other girls, I would get a ribbon, which was at least atmospherically related to a trophy.

Tzvi did something classic in one way but very unlike himself in another. He did something practical. The month before the track meet, he took me out to our school track several nights a week. I ran in a button-up shirt, I now remember, one that was white with blue stripes. Four laps around the track was half a mile. He timed me, and he shouted at me.

During the race, when, on the third lap, I passed a girl whose name I won’t mention to protect her from the indignity of it, she began to cry. To be passed by me was much worse than just coming in last. But my dad had no sympathy for her. The way he saw it, I had shown the world; I had never surrendered. I guess what I’m saying is that some ways of being nice came easily to my father, and other ways were difficult for him, even as, for someone else, it would be a whole other set of things that were easy, that were difficult. When he trained me for that meet, he had done something, for me, that for him was difficult. He had not been forty-five minutes late.

We rarely ate dinner together as a family. My mom doled out to each of us the food that we wanted, at the hour that we wanted it. Chopped-tomato-cucumber-red-onion salads for my father. Plain couscous with butter for me. An argument with my brother about ordering takeout. I believe my mom ate whatever was left over, that no one else wanted. Years later, without quite deciding to, I assumed a similar role. In that role, I nicknamed myself the Invisible Dishrag. Being a dishrag extends beyond cooking, of course. Sometimes I would find myself deeply bothered and resentful about my dishrag role. But most of the time I found myself thinking, perhaps smugly, Well, I’m capable. My dad often talked about how intelligent my mother was. To be a dishrag was not to be Jeannie from “I Dream of Jeannie” (though I loved her, too) but more like Samantha, from “Bewitched.” Samantha was powerful—she could, for example, teleport by wiggling her nose—but she kept her power under wraps out of respect for the man in her life, a guy named Darrin. That I watched so much television during childhood, wasting away like that, I also somehow have become O.K. with. Though it has left me unable to watch any television at all now, when television has supposedly become so good.

There was one meal that my family did eat together. That was the Passover meal, which we usually shared with the Scottish Jewish Orthodox family who lived on the other side of town, the Levines. To this day, my brother and I still call roasted potatoes Levine potatoes. What I remember best about those Seders was how my dad and Martin Levine, a dentist, were capable of long discussions about almost any line of the Haggadah. They debated the meaning of the line “My father was a wandering Aramaean.” Where and when had they got this knowledge? My dad came from a very secular family, but, in the Israeli Army, he had won some sort of contest in Bible knowledge. (This is also true of Bertie Wooster.) That my father had been in the Army—that fact felt to me like fiction, though we had his old Army water bottle under the kitchen sink. For some reason, the inessential learnedness of those Seder meals impressed me as something that I could never accomplish but which resided in the realms where true worth lay.

When my dad’s father died, he didn’t tell me. My mom told me that my grandfather had died, and that was why my dad was away, but that he would be home soon. When my dad returned, he attended our local Hillel each Friday, sometimes with me, to say the Mourner’s Kaddish. Often, there weren’t the required ten men present to have a “real” service, with the Kaddish, and this frustrated my father: he had come for the Kaddish. As a child, I didn’t count among the ten—maybe also as a female. I remember that my father argued otherwise.

That Kaddish year gave me a narrow but real peek into my dad’s childhood. I knew that my grandfather put a sugar cube into his mouth when he drank tea, and that he told my dad he wouldn’t understand the movie “Rashomon” until he was older. I think Tzvi said little to me about his own childhood because he wanted to let me have my childhood, and not crowd it out with the inner lives and melancholies and anxieties of adults. He did say to me once, “Your mother and I did one thing right. We made sure that you and your brother got to be children for a long time.” What he felt worst about was that the family had to move so much when my brother was young; after I started first grade, we stayed in place for more than ten years. I’ve come to think that maybe my childhood was happy mostly because it was childhood. When I moved in with my partner and his children, and later when I had a child, my own childhood returned to me. I believe that children arrive with their own life of the mind, and that to the extent that they get to spend time in that world which they themselves have invented—that’s pretty good. Much of the rest is roulette.

The summer after my dad died, I found myself studying at a women’s yeshiva in Jerusalem—I assume because I thought I’d learn some of the Biblical knowledge mysteriously held by my father. My family thought I was insane. I may as well have been studying with Scientologists, as far as they were concerned. Most of the young women there had, well, backstories. One was a professional dancer who had been in a car crash and broken her back. Another was the daughter of a psychiatrist who had been shot by one of his patients. Another was just a very tall and very slim woman who we all knew was “from Oxford.” One of the rabbis who instructed us had blue eyes and had been a d.j. and a ski instructor living in Berkeley before becoming religious. He told us a long story in class one day about how, through a series of kooky chance encounters, his son’s congenital heart malformation was found and immediately operated on—and that this was because Hashem was watching out for him. At that point, I decided that my dad would have sided with the rest of my family, and wanted me out of there. My dad’s voice has often been with me in this way, generally amused, occasionally in the mood for a fight.

One afternoon, toward the end of my last year of high school, I found pages from a magazine torn out and taped to my door. The pages were titled “Messages from My Father,” and they were by Calvin Trillin, in the June 20th, 1994, issue of The New Yorker . The reason we had a New Yorker subscription at all was that it was advertised on one of those Sunday mornings when my dad watched the “fighting shows” at full volume, and I had said that maybe we should get a subscription, and he had said, “I don’t have time to read it, but how about you read it, and you tell me if there’s something in there I should read.” The day that my dad taped the Trillin piece to my door, he told me that I should one day write something like that about him. Ha-ha. Four months later, my father had a heart attack and died, at the age of fifty-three. I didn’t write that essay. I didn’t know enough. I barely even knew that my father was gone. I was not many weeks into my first year of college, and a substantial part of me thought, I’ll see him when I go back to Oklahoma. I had several dreams in which he was sitting in a booth at a diner. When my Spanish teacher learned, through some conversation exercise, that my father was a meteorologist, she told me that she had always wanted to understand how wind chill was calculated, and she asked me to ask my dad about that. I told her I would. ♦

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In the weeks before John Wayne Gacy’s scheduled execution, he was far from reconciled to his fate .

What HBO’s “Chernobyl” got right, and what it got terribly wrong .

Why does the Bible end that way ?

A new era of strength competitions is testing the limits of the human body .

How an unemployed blogger confirmed that Syria had used chemical weapons.

An essay by Toni Morrison: “ The Work You Do, the Person You Are .”

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Int J Environ Res Public Health

Children’s and Adolescents’ Happiness and Family Functioning: A Systematic Literature Review

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Articles and data will be made available to the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Background: the present research represents the first systematic review of the literature on the relation between happiness (i.e., subjective well-being, life satisfaction, positive affect) and family functioning in families with children aged 6–18 years. Method: relevant articles were systematically searched in three scientific databases (i.e., PsycInfo, Pubmed, and Web of Science) in June 2022. The databases were searched for original articles published after 1968 with the keywords “happiness” and “family functioning.” Results: of the 2683 records recovered, 124 original articles met the eligibility criteria and were included in the review. The articles were divided according to four emergent themes: (1) family dimensions and happiness; (2) global family functioning (i.e., family functioning, and family relationships), environmental variables, and happiness; (3) parental differences; (4) longitudinal studies. Conclusions: the results of the review provide evidence for a positive relation between happiness and family functioning, across different cultures and age groups: Family dimensions (e.g., cohesion, communication) were found to strongly predict children’s and adolescents’ happiness. Future studies should investigate the differences between fathers and mothers using multi-informant and mixed methods procedures and a longitudinal research approach. The implications of the findings for children’s positive development are discussed.

1. Introduction

Research on children’s and adolescents’ happiness has increased in recent years [ 1 ] due to the association between happiness and improved physical and mental health [ 2 , 3 ]. For the present systematic review, happiness was conceptualized as a relatively stable, positive, and affective trait [ 4 , 5 ], with an emphasis on subjective well-being and general life satisfaction [ 2 , 6 , 7 ]. Previous studies [ 8 , 9 ] have suggested that family emotional bonds and positive relationships are primary sources of children’s happiness. Indeed, dimensions of family functioning have been shown to significantly predict children’s happiness, beyond the influence of peer and school settings [ 10 ]. However, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no systematic review of the relation between children’s happiness and family functioning. Thus, the present systematic literature review aimed to understand the associations between children’s and adolescents’ happiness and dimensions of family functioning.

Happiness is comprised of an affective and a cognitive component [ 6 , 11 ]: (a) the affective component involves high levels of pleasant emotions (e.g., joy, interest, excitement, confidence, readiness) and low levels of negative emotions (e.g., anger, fear, sadness, guilt, contempt, disgust) [ 12 ]; (b) the cognitive component represents a global assessment of quality of life, indicating the degree to which one’s essential needs, goals, and desires are satisfied [ 13 ]. These judgments are usually understood to describe overall life satisfaction, or satisfaction within a specific domain (e.g., work, family life, social life, school).

1.1. Family Functioning and Happiness

Previous studies have suggested that healthy family functioning is associated with children’s and adolescents’ happiness [ 14 ]. Since the 1980s, the Circumplex model [ 15 ] and the McMaster Model of Family Functioning (MMFF) [ 16 ] have promoted a new vision of the family as an open system in interaction with the environment. However, there is no single definition of family functioning in the literature. Regardless of the differing compositions of modern families, family functioning refers to effective emotional bonding between family members, the use of family rules, family communication, and the management of external events [ 17 ]. Thus, family functioning describes the dynamic interactions within a family unit and how a family fulfills its functions [ 18 ], referring to the ways in which family members interact and work together to achieve common goals and outcomes [ 19 , 20 ]. Various factors may influence family functioning, including family structure, socioeconomic status, life events, family relationships, and the evolutive stages of the family [ 19 , 21 , 22 ]. Although family functioning is a complex phenomenon that can be assessed in various ways [ 23 ], it generally refers to the quality of family life at a systemic level, emphasizing wellness, competence, strengths, and weaknesses [ 24 ].

Previous studies have reported that positive family functioning is associated with children’s and adolescents’ happiness [ 25 , 26 , 27 ]. In particular, research has found that family connectedness promotes well-being and parental support directly contributes to children’s happiness [ 28 ]. Furthermore, the quality of family relationships has been shown to be more important to students’ happiness than the peer group, school, or community [ 29 ].

Family cohesion and adaptability have been found to be linearly correlated with family functioning (i.e., family communication and satisfaction) [ 15 ]. Effective communication is a central feature of high family functioning [ 30 ], and research has shown that when parent–adolescent communication is good, the family is closer, more loving, and more flexible in solving problems [ 31 ]. Indeed, when defining their perceptions of well-being, adolescents frequently refer to good relationships and pleasant moments spent with family members [ 32 ].

As conflict tends to generate negative emotions, high-conflict families have been found to be associated with lower levels of happiness and life satisfaction [ 33 ]. On the other hand, family satisfaction, defined as the extent to which individuals feel satisfied with the level of perceived support from family members [ 34 ], has been shown to be associated with increased happiness and overall life satisfaction in children and adolescents [ 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ]. Other studies have confirmed that a dysfunctional family relationship (e.g., low-income, family coherence, family conflict) is a risk factor for children’s and adolescents’ happiness [ 32 , 39 ].

1.2. The Present Study

Decades of research have highlighted the importance of studying children’s development within their immediate life contexts (i.e., home, school, and community) [ 40 ]. During childhood and adolescence, these contexts represent microsystems where young people spend large parts of their daily lives [ 2 , 41 ]. However, few studies have comprehensively examined the personal and familial factors associated with happiness as a function of developmental age. Family functioning, parent–child relationship quality, and family satisfaction have been identified as significant predictors of children’s happiness [ 42 , 43 , 44 ]. Moreover, studies have shown that happy people tend to have stronger social relationships than less happy people [ 45 ]. Research has also reported that the family plays an essential role in shaping the positive development of children and adolescents [ 46 ]. Finally, longitudinal studies have found that adolescents’ family experiences predict multiple facets of adult functioning, including physical and mental health, well-being, and academic achievement [ 47 ].

To the best of our knowledge, the present study represents the first systematic review of the literature on the relation between happiness (i.e., subjective well-being, life satisfaction, and positive affect) and family functioning during the developmental ages of 6–18 years. The importance of exploring this specific development phase derives from scientific evidence that happiness declines with increasing age [ 2 , 27 , 48 ]. Again, studies have highlighted the importance of addressing multicontextual influences on happiness, with the relevant literature strongly supporting the ecological theory, emphasizing the effects of salient life contexts [ 49 ]. In this sense, a systematic review of the literature could improve our understanding of the associations between children’s and adolescents’ happiness and dimensions of family functioning.

2.1. Search Strategy

The present systematic review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines [ 50 ]. Relevant articles, indexed in three scientific databases (i.e., PsycInfo, Pubmed, and Web of Science), were searched. Further studies were identified through by-hand searches of the reference lists of the included articles. The investigation was conducted in June 2022, and the search included all original research articles published post-1968.

The exact search term combinations were: ([“happi *” OR “happy” OR “positive affect *” OR “positive emotions” OR “subjective well-being” OR “subjective wellbeing” OR “well-being” OR “wellbeing” OR “life satisfaction” OR “satisfaction with life”] AND [“family funct *” OR “family conflict” OR “family cohesion” OR “family communication” OR “family flexibility” OR “family problem-solving” OR “family problem solving” OR “family satisfaction” OR “family relation*”] AND [“toddler *” OR “infant *” OR “child *” “pre-schooler *” OR “preschooler *” OR “pre-adoles *” OR “preadoles *” OR “adolesc *” OR “student *” OR “pupil *”]).

2.2. Study Screening Selection

Two reviewers independently selected abstracts, excluding articles that did not meet the selection criteria. Age and language filters were applied to the various databases to limit the search to studies reported in only English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and German. Since the review focused on childhood and adolescence, studies involving participants over 18 years old were excluded. Specifically, only original research articles published in scientific journals were included in the review. Furthermore, only scientific studies using mixed or quantitative methodology were selected, while no studies involving clinical samples were included. Pure qualitative studies, books, and book chapters were excluded. No reviews examining the association between children’s and adolescents’ happiness and family functioning were found.

Moreover, to be considered for inclusion, studies had to assess both happiness and family functioning. Studies with a single measure evaluating the two variables as subdimensions (i.e., general life satisfaction and family satisfaction) were excluded. Only studies reporting associations between happiness and family functioning, or the effects of family functioning on children’s happiness, were included. When the results appeared vague, the researchers contacted the authors ( n = 50) to clarify their methodology and results ( n = 8 responded). In the absence of a response, the relevant studies were excluded. Figure 1 displays the PRISMA flowchart of the systematic review process.

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PRISMA flowchart of the study selection.

2.3. Data Extraction

The following information was independently extracted using a structured template by two reviewers: author(s), year of publication, country, study design, participant age and gender, sample size, measures of happiness and family functioning, and main findings. Coding disagreements were resolved through discussion between the first two reviewers. The Cohen’s kappa coefficient, calculated to assess inter-rater reliability, was 0.94, reflecting very high agreement. The third author resolved any discrepancies.

3.1. Study Characteristics

A total of 2683 scientific articles were identified (777 from PsycInfo, 662 from Pubmed, and 1244 from Web of Science), and 56 other records were added through other sources. After 970 duplicates were removed, a further 833 articles were excluded based on a review of their titles and abstracts. The remaining 936 studies were considered potentially eligible for inclusion. The full-text articles were obtained and assessed for eligibility, resulting in a final selection of 124 studies. Although the search included works published between 1968 and 2022, the present review was restricted to the years 1991–2022, because no articles published prior to 1991 met the inclusion criteria.

Regarding the study characteristics, sample sizes ranged from 74–25,906. Participant ages were also heterogeneous, though predominantly falling within the pre-adolescent and adolescent age range. With respect to school level, 18 studies examined elementary school students (i.e., aged 6–11 years) and 111 studies explored middle and high school students (i.e., aged 12–18 years). The studies were conducted in different continents: 30% in Asia (i.e., 27 in China, 1 in India, 2 in Indonesia, 3 in Israel, 3 in Korea, and 1 in Palestine), 22% in Europe (i.e., 4 in Croatia, 3 in Finland, 1 in France, 1 in Germany, 1 in Holland, 1 in Ireland, 3 in Italy, 1 in The Netherlands, 2 in Portugal, 8 in Spain, and 3 in the United Kingdom), 18% in the United States, 13% in South America (i.e., 3 in Brazil, 11 in Chile, 1 in Mexico, and 1 in Peru), and 2% in Australia. In addition, 13 articles (i.e., 11%) were cross-cultural, while 5 (i.e., 4%) were conducted in transcontinental states (i.e., 1 in Russia, 4 in Turkey). Table 1 , Table 2 , Table 3 and Table 4 present detailed characteristics of each of the reviewed articles, including the study design, participants, and tools.

The articles were categorized according to four emergent themes (and subthemes): (1) family dimensions and happiness; (2) global family functioning (i.e., family functioning and family relationships), environmental variables, and happiness; (3) parental differences; (4) longitudinal studies. The studies are presented in Table 1 , Table 2 , Table 3 and Table 4 (according to theme), and the significant findings within these four themes are synthesized in Section 3.2 , Section 3.3 , Section 3.4 and Section 3.5 .

3.1.1. Happiness Measures

The investigated studies used various measures to assess affective, cognitive, or global components of happiness. The affective component of happiness was evaluated using the Happiness Face Scale [ 26 ], Piers-Harris Children’s Concept Scale 2 (PHS) [ 51 ], Subjective Happiness Scale [ 52 ], Chinese Happiness Inventory (CHI) [ 53 ], Oxford Happiness Inventory (OHI) [ 54 ], Happiness Overall Life (HOL) [ 55 ], Happiness Taking into Account Overall Life (HTOL) [ 56 , 57 ], Russell’s Core Affect [ 58 ], Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) [ 59 ], Positive and Negative Affect Scale for Children [ 60 ], Scale of Positive and Negative Affects for Adolescents (PNAA) [ 61 ], Affect Balance Scale (ABS) [ 62 ], Profile of Mood States-Adolescents (POMS-A) [ 63 ], positive affect subscales of the Profile of Mood States (POMS) [ 64 ], Personal Wellbeing Index—School Children (PWI-SC) [ 65 ], and Patients’ Well-Being Questionnaire for adolescents (PWBQ) [ 66 ].

The cognitive component of happiness was assessed using the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) [ 67 ], Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (SLSS) [ 34 ], Cantril Ladder [ 68 ], Quality of Life Questionnaire (modified version) [ 69 ], Multidimensional Life Satisfaction Scale [ 70 ], Brief Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS) [ 71 ], Overall Life Satisfaction (OLS) [ 57 ], Life 3 Scale [ 72 ], General Questionnaire for Adolescents [ 73 ], and Rating of Global Life Satisfaction (RGLS) [ 71 ]. Finally, the global measures of happiness were investigated using the World Health Organization—Five Well-Being Index (WHO-5 WBI) [ 74 ]), Berne Questionnaire of Subjective Well-Being/Youth form (BSW/Y) [ 75 ], Multidimensional Scale for the Measurement of Subjective Well-being of Anguas-Plata and Reyes-Lagunes (EMMBSAR) [ 76 ], and Emotional Well-Being Scale (EWS) [ 77 ].

3.1.2. Family Functioning Measures

Family functioning and relationships were evaluated using nine measures, including self-report questionnaires (12 articles) and interview assessments ( n = 1). Of the self-report measures of family functioning, the most frequently used were the Family Assessment Instrument (FAI) [ 78 ] ( n = 7), Family Assessment Device (FAD) [ 23 ] ( n = 6), Self-Report Family Instrument (SFI) [ 79 ] ( n = 6), Behaviour Assessment System for Children (BASC) [ 80 ] ( n = 2), Family Relationships Scale [ 81 ] ( n = 2), and Family Relationship subscale of the International Survey of Children’s Well-Being (ISCWeB) [ 82 ] ( n = 2).

Less frequently used measures ( n = 1) included the Brief Family Function Questionnaire (BFFQ) [ 83 ], Family APGAR Index [ 84 ], Family Dynamics Measure (FDM II) [ 85 ], Family-of-Origin Scale (FOS) [ 86 ], Father/Mother Involvement Scale [ 87 ], and Relationship with Father/Mother Questionnaire (RFMQ) [ 88 ]. The only qualitative measure of family functioning was the Adolescent Interview Schedule [ 89 ], which measures the perceived family environment and the parent–adolescent relationship. Finally, some studies used specially-designed measures to investigate the quality of family relationships (e.g., [ 90 , 91 ]).

The investigated studies assessed specific family dimensions: (a) family cohesion and adaptability, (b) family communication and satisfaction, and (c) family conflict. Family cohesion and adaptability were evaluated using the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales (FACES II, [ 92 ]; FACES III, [ 93 ]; FACES IV; [ 94 , 95 ]), Colorado Self-Report of Family Functioning Inventory (CSRFFI) [ 96 ], Family Environment Scale (FES) [ 96 ], and Brief Family Relationship Scale [ 97 ]. Only one study measuring family cohesion used a graphical method, applying the Pictorial Representation Index [ 98 ].

Family communication and satisfaction were assessed using the Parent-Adolescent Communication Scale [ 31 ], Attitudes and Behaviors Survey (A&B) [ 99 ], Family Satisfaction subscale of the Multidimensional Life Satisfaction Scale for Adolescents (MLSSA) [ 100 ], Family Satisfaction subscale of the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS) [ 70 ], Family Satisfaction subscale of the Brief Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS) [ 71 ], Satisfaction with Family Life Scale (SWFLS; Based on SWLS [ 67 ]), Satisfaction with Family Relationships (adaptation of a scale proposed by Cantril Ladder [ 68 ]), Satisfaction with Family subscale of the General Domain Satisfaction Index [ 101 ], Satisfaction with Family Life (SWFaL) [ 102 ], Family Life Satisfaction Scale (FLSS) [ 103 ], Satisfaction with Different Life Domains [ 104 ], General Family Satisfaction subscale of the Quality of Family Interaction Scale [ 105 ], and the Adolescent Interview Schedule (with the latter representing the only qualitative measure) [ 89 ].

Finally, family conflict was investigated using the Father-Adolescent Conflict Scale (FACS), Mother-Adolescent Conflict Scale (MACS) [ 106 ], Family Conflicts Scale [ 107 ], Aversive Parent-Child Interactions subscale of the Youth Everyday Social Interactions and Mood measure [ 108 ], Network of Relationships Inventory (NRI) [ 109 ], and Family Conflict subscale of the Brief Family Relationship Scale [ 97 ]. Only one study measured daily family conflict by adapting items from the Family Environment Scale [ 96 ].

3.2. Family Dimensions Predicting Happiness

Regarding the first theme ( n = 91), family dimensions (i.e., cohesion and communication) were found to strongly predict children’s and adolescents’ levels of happiness. Three interconnected subdimensions characterized this theme: family cohesion and adaptability, family satisfaction and communication, and family conflict ( Table 1 ).

3.2.1. Family Cohesion and Adaptability

In the selected studies ( n = 21), family cohesion—reflecting the strength of the family bond—was positively correlated with both the affective (i.e., positive affect and emotions) and the cognitive components (i.e., life satisfaction) of children’s and adolescents’ happiness [ 77 , 110 , 111 , 112 ]. Adolescents from families with higher cohesion reported a more positive mood and a higher level of happiness [ 111 , 113 ]. The affective component of happiness was positively correlated with family cohesion and closeness [ 25 , 114 ]. Feeling close to family members, doing things with family members, and sharing interests and hobbies with family members were also associated with happiness, especially in boys [ 25 ].

Children’s and adolescents’ happiness was positively correlated with family cohesion and intimacy [ 7 , 28 , 44 , 115 , 116 , 117 , 118 , 119 , 120 ]. Therefore, children who perceived a less cohesive atmosphere at home reported lower life satisfaction and higher negative affect [ 121 ], which precipitated negative thoughts towards people and events (i.e., hostility). Therefore, increased life satisfaction and low negative affect might help children to cope with adverse events [ 111 ]. In addition, Song et al. (2018) [ 44 ] found that self-esteem mediated the relationship between family cohesion and life satisfaction.

Happiness had a significantly positive correlation with family adaptability [ 20 ]—defined as the quality and expression of leadership and organization, role relationships, and rules and negotiations within the family [ 95 ]—from the perspectives of both children and parents [ 27 ]. Again, adolescents’ perceptions of family flexibility were positively associated with their happiness [ 122 , 123 ]. Although most studies reported that cohesion and flexibility were correlated with higher levels of happiness in children, Verrastro et al. (2020) [ 27 ] found that family variables were not significantly predictive of children’s happiness.

3.2.2. Family Conflict

The examined studies highlighted that parent–child conflict ( n = 17) strongly negatively predicted children’s and adolescents’ positive affect [ 77 , 124 , 125 ] and perceived happiness [ 126 ]. Adolescents felt less happy and satisfied on days of intense conflict with parents [ 113 ], and adequate parental warmth moderated and decreased the negative effect on children’s happiness and well-being [ 124 ]. Furthermore, parent–adolescent conflict was associated with low life satisfaction of children and adolescents [ 33 , 46 , 89 , 114 , 127 , 128 , 129 , 130 ], from the perspectives of both parents and children [ 131 ]. Even in late adolescence, happiness negatively correlated with family conflict before college [ 132 ].

Family conflict directly affected emotional happiness (i.e., life satisfaction and positive emotions) [ 77 , 127 , 133 ] during late adolescence. Indeed, one study found that satisfaction with life buffered the harmful effects of family conflict among undergraduate students [ 132 ]. However, other studies did not reveal a statistically-significant correlation between children’s happiness and parent–child conflict [ 33 , 134 ].

Adolescent gender moderated between- and within-family (i.e., daily cohesion and conflict) effects on mood, and the interaction between daily conflict and adolescent gender was significantly correlated with positive mood. One study found that, relative to girls, boys reported significantly lower levels of happiness in the context of family conflict [ 113 ]. However, another study found no gender differences among adolescents in the association between parent–adolescent conflict and adolescent psychological well-being [ 129 ].

3.2.3. Family Communication and Satisfaction

In the selected studies ( n = 13), mother–adolescent and father–adolescent communication were positively associated with both the affective component (i.e., positive affect) and the cognitive component (i.e., life satisfaction) of adolescents’ happiness [ 30 , 135 ]. Children’s happiness and positive affect positively correlated with family communication [ 25 ], from both the children’s and parents’ perspectives [ 27 ]. Therefore, having family members who expressed their opinions and talked about their feelings was associated with positive affect [ 25 ].

Children’s and adolescents’ life satisfaction [ 20 , 136 , 137 ] and emotional well-being (i.e., happiness, positive affect, and life satisfaction) [ 30 ] correlated positively with family communication. Specifically, adolescents’ life satisfaction was positively associated with communicative openness with their father and mother [ 138 ] and negatively with offensive and avoidant communication with their parents [ 114 , 139 , 140 ]. Some research reported that positive (i.e., accessible, comprehensive, and satisfying) family communication significantly predicted life satisfaction [ 138 , 141 ]. Verrastro et al. (2020) [ 27 ] found an interaction between children’s gender and family communication, suggesting that, among female participants, having a family that practiced good communication was more strongly associated with higher levels of happiness.

Moreover, studies found positive correlations between family satisfaction ( n = 47) and happiness [ 142 , 143 , 144 ], identifying satisfaction with family life as the strongest predictor of overall life satisfaction, from childhood to adolescence [ 3 , 29 , 35 , 42 , 145 , 146 ]. In particular, family satisfaction correlated positively with both the affective component (i.e., positive affect and positive emotions) and the cognitive component (i.e., life satisfaction) of happiness [ 36 , 37 , 71 , 147 , 148 , 149 , 150 ]. Furthermore, family life satisfaction was positively associated with children’s positive affect [ 148 , 151 , 152 , 153 ] and happiness [ 38 , 126 ], from the perspectives of both children [ 1 , 154 , 155 , 156 , 157 , 158 , 159 , 160 , 161 , 162 , 163 , 164 , 165 , 166 , 167 ] and parents [ 27 , 73 , 168 , 169 ]. However, one study reported a non-significant positive correlation between happiness and family satisfaction [ 38 ].

The relation between family satisfaction and life satisfaction may be bidirectional. Indeed, one study showed that positive affect predicted high school students’ satisfaction with family life [ 151 ]. On the other hand, other studies identified family satisfaction as a significant predictor of life satisfaction [ 170 , 171 , 172 , 173 ]. For instance, some authors [ 36 , 149 ] found that high satisfaction with family life was related to a greater frequency and intensity of affective experiences of love, affection, joy, and happiness [ 174 ].

Sample Characteristics and Methods of Assessment of the Reviewed Studies Investigating Family Dimensions and Happiness ( n = 91).

	Child Characteristics			Happiness Measure		Family Measure
Author (Year), Country		Age	% Male	Method	Measure	Method	Measure	Res. Design	Pub
Alcantara et al. (2017) [ ], Brazil	910	Range 10–13 ( = 11.90)	47.9	S	OLS SLSS	S	SDDC	C	Pub
Bahrassa et al. (2011) [ ], United States	82	Range 17–19 ( = 18.5)	43.9	S	SWLS	S	FCS	C	Pub
Bakalım & Taşdelen-Karçkay (2015) [ ], Turkey	456	Range 14–18	47.1	S	PANAS	S	FLSS	C	Pub
Bedin & Sarriera (2015) [ ], Brazil	543	Range 12–16 ( = 14.1)	31.7	S	HOL OLS SWLS	S	BMSLSS	C	Pub *
Bennefield (2018) [ ], United States	10,148	Range 13–17 ( = 15.2)	48.9	S	PAS	S	FCQ FCLQ	C	Pub
Bernal et al. (2011) [ ], Mexico	580	Range 15–19 ( = 16.45)	49.0	S	EMMBSAR SWLS	S	SWFLS	C	Pub
Bradley & Corwyn (2004) [ ], United States	310	Range 15–19 ( = 12.24)	46.5	S	QLQ	S	FCC	C	Pub
Braithwaite & Devine (1993) [ ], Australia	112	Range 14–21 ( = 16.62)	53.0	S	L3S	G	PRI	C	Pub
Braithwaite & Devine (1993) [ ], Australia	112	Range 14–21 ( = 16.62)	53.0	S	L3S	S	PCI	C	Pub
Cacioppo et al. (2013) [ ], Italy	255	Range 15–17 ( = 15.98)	40.8	S	MSLSS	S	FAD	C	Pub
Carrascosa et al. (2018) [ ], Spain	672	Range 12–19 ( = 14.45)	51.2	S	SWLS	S	PACS	C	Pub
Casas et al. (2007) [ ], Spain (1999 sample)	1634	Range 12–16 ( = 14.12)	48.5	S	OLS	S	LDS	C	Pub
Casas et al. (2007) [ ], Spain (2003 sample)	1618	Range 12–16 ( = 13.97)	46.9	S	OLS	S	LDS	C	Pub
Casas et al. (2013) [ ], Spain	5937	Range 11–14	ns	S	OLS SLSS	S	GDSI	C	Pub
Casas et al. (2015) [ ], Spain, Brazil, and Chile	5316	Range 12–16 ( = 13.59)	44.2	S	OLS	S	BMSLSS	N	Pub
Cava et al. (2014) [ ], Spain	1795	Range 11–18 ( = 14.2)	52.0	S	SWLS	S	PACS	C	Pub
Caycho-Rodríguez et al. (2018) [ ], Peru	804	Range 11–18 ( = 13.5)	53.0	S	WHO-5 WBI	S	SWFLS	V	Pub
Cruz & Piña-Watson (2017) [ ], United States	524	Range 14–20 ( = 16.23)	46.9	S	BMSLSS	S	FCS	C	Pub
da Costa & Neto (2019) [ ], Portugal	252	Range 15–19 ( = 16.87)	52.0	S	SWLS	S	SWFLS	V	Pub
Dost-Gözkan (2021) [ ], Turkey	1097	Range 14–16 ( = 15.12)	38.4	S	MLSS	S	FES	C	Pub
Ercegovac et al. (2021) [ ], Croatia	481	Range 10–17 ( = 12.45)	37.4	S	OLS	S	FSS	C	Pub
Estévez López et al. (2018) [ ], Spain	1510	Range 12–17 ( = 13.4)	52.0	S	SWLS	S	PACS FES	C	Pub *
Fosco & Lydon-Staley (2020) [ ], United States	151	Range 13–16 ( = 14.60)	38.4	S	POMS SWLS	S	FES	C	Pub
Froh et al. (2009) [ ], United States	154	Range 11–13 ( = 12.14)	ns	S	OLS PNA	S	BMSLSS	C	Pub
Gao & Potwarka (2021) [ ], China	675	Range 12–15	47.3	S	SLSS PANAS	S	FACES II	L	Pub
Galarce Muñoz et al. (2020) [ ], Chile (students without disabilities)	70	Range 14–19 ( = 16.6)	54.3	S	PANAS	S	MSLSS	C	Pub *
Galarce Muñoz et al. (2020) [ ], Chile (students with motor disabilities)	18	Range 14–19 ( = 15.7)	44.4	S	PANAS	S	MSLSS	C	Pub *
Galarce Muñoz et al. (2020) [ ], Chile (hearing-impaired students)	17	Range 14–19 ( = 15.5)	76.5	S	PANAS	S	MSLSS	C	Pub *
Galarce Muñoz et al. (2020) [ ], Chile (visually impaired students)	15	Range 14–19 ( = 16.1)	46.7	S	PANAS	S	MSLSS	C	Pub *
Gil da Silva & Dell’Aglio (2018) [ ], Brazil	426	Range 12–18 ( = 14.9)	38.0	S	PNAA	S	MLSSA	C	Pub *
Gomez (2011) [ ], United States	158	Range 11–15 ( = 13.49)	55.0	S	PANAS SWLS	S	MSLSS	C	Pub
Gómez et al. (2019) [ ], Chile	1392	Range 10–13 ( = 11.5)	54.2	S	SLSS	S	GDSI	C	Pub
González-Carrasco et al. (2017) [ ], Spain	970	Range 9–16 ( = 12.02)	44.1	S	HTOL OLS RCA	S	SDLD	F	Pub
Gross-Manos et al. (2015) [ ], Israel	1081	Range 11–13 ( = 11.49)	51.5	S	HLTW OLS SLSS	S	BMSLSS	C	Pub
Hamama & Arazi (2012) [ ], Israel	111	Range 9–13 ( = 11.8)	50.5	S	PANAS SLSS	S	FACES III	C	Pub
Huebner (1991a) [ ], United States	79	Range 10–13 ( = 11.45)	63.0	S	SLSS	S	FSD	C	Pub
Ingelmo & Litago (2018) [ ], Spain	1409	Range 11–18 ( = 14.4)	49.6	S	CL	S	SWFR	C	Pub
Irmak & Kuruüzüm (2009) [ ], Turkey	959	Range 11–16 ( = 14.35)	50.0	S	SWLS	S	MSLSS	V	Pub
Jackson et al. (1998) [ ], Holland	660	Range 13–15 ( = 13.5)	46.4	S	ABS CL	S	PACS	C	Pub
Jhang (2021) [ ], China (Time 1)	1273	Range 12–15 ( = 13.55)	49.0	S	SWLS	S	FACES III	L	Pub
Jhang (2021) [ ], China (Time 2)	1028	Range 14–17	ns	S	SWLS	S	FACES III	L	Pub
Jiménez et al. (2009) [ ], Spain	565	Range 11–18 ( = 13.6)	51.0	S	SWLS	S	PACS	C	Pub
Jiménez et al. (2014) [ ], Spain (Time 1)	1319	Range 12–16 ( = 13.5)	46.0	S	SWLS	S	PACS	L	Pub
Jiménez et al. (2014) [ ], Spain (Time 2)	554	Range 12–16 ( = 13.7)	46.0	S	SWLS	S	PACS	L	Pub
Kaye-Tzadok et al. (2017) [ ], 16 countries	5000	12-year-old children	46.2	S	SLSS	S	SWF	C	Pub
Khurana (2011) [ ], India	400	Range 16–18	50.0	S	PHAS	S	MSLSS PCS	C	Pub
Kim & Main (2017) [ ], South Korea and United Kingdom	3743	Range 11–12 ( = 12.0)	42.0	S	SLSS	S	SWF	N	Pub
Koster et al. (2018) [ ], The Netherlands	255	Range 15–19 ( = 16.27)	57.0	S	SWLS	S	NRI	C	Pub
Leto et al. (2019) [ ], Russia	424	Range 7–10 ( = 9.1)	49.0	S	SLSS	S	FAD	C	Pub
Lietz et al. (2020) [ ], Australia	5440	Range 8–15	48.1	S	SLSS	S	ISCWeB	C	Pub
Lin & Yi (2019) [ ], China	2690	Range 13–17 ( = 13.3)	51.2	S	LS	S	FACES III	L	Pub
Ljubetić & Reić Ercegovac (2020) [ ], Croatia	101	Range 10–17 ( = 15.4)	31.7	S	GQA	S	QFIS	C	Pub
Mallette et al. (2021) [ ], United States	207	Range 11–18	ns	S	PWI-SC	S	FACES IV	C	Pub
Manzi et al. (2006) [ ], Italy and United Kingdom	223	Range 17–21 ( = 18.9)	49.3	S	SWLS	S	CSRFFI	N	Pub
Merkaš & Brajša-Žganec (2011) [ ], Croatia	298	Range 10–15 ( = 12.7)	43.0	S	BMSLSS	S	CSRFFI	C	Pub
Migliorini et al. (2019) [ ], Italy	1145	Range 7–10 ( = 8.21)	49.9	S	OLS SLSS	S	BMSLSS	C	Pub
Moore et al. (2018) [ ], United Kingdom	9055	Range 11–16 ( = 13.7)	50.6	S	SWB	S	FCSFR	C	Pub
Moreno-Maldonado et al. (2020) [ ], Portugal and Spain	21,081	Range 11–16	50.2	S	CL	S	SWFR	N	Pub
Orejudo et al. (2021) [ ], Mexico, Peru, and Spain (Mexico sample)	645	Range 12–18 ( = 14.69)	72.6	S	LSD	S	QFR	N	Pub
Orejudo et al. (2021) [ ], Mexico, Peru, and Spain (Peru sample)	1331	Range 12–18 ( = 14.35)	37.6	S	LSD	S	QFR	N	Pub
Orejudo et al. (2021) [ ], Mexico, Peru, and Spain (Spain sample)	791	Range 12–18 ( = 14.45)	41.0	S	LSD	S	QFR	N	Pub
Park & Huebner (2005) [ ], Korea and United States (Korea sample)	472	Range 12–17 ( = 15.22)	51.0	S	SLSS	S	MSLSS	N	Pub
Park & Huebner (2005) [ ], Korea and United States (United States sample)	543	Range 12–17 ( = 14.89)	46.0	S	SLSS	S	MSLSS	N	Pub
Park (2005) [ ], Korea (elementary students sample)	247	Range 9–11 ( = 10.7)	47.0	S	SLSS	S	MSLSS	C	Pub
Park (2005) [ ], Korea (middle school student sample)	231	Range 12–14 ( = 13.8)	48.0	S	SLSS	S	MSLSS	C	Pub
Park (2005) [ ], Korea (high school student sample)	258	Range 15–17 ( = 16.5)	49.0	S	SLSS	S	MSLSS	C	Pub
Park et al. (2005) [ ], South Korea	501	Range 14–16	54.1	S	SWLS	S	PACS	C	Pub
Raboteg-Šarić et al. (2009) [ ], Croatia	2823	Range 14–18 ( = 16.86)	45.5	S	GSL	S	FES	C	Pub
Rees (2017) [ ], eight European countries	9156	Aged around 12 years old	ns	S	SLSS	S	BMSLSS	N	Pub
Rhatigan (2002) [ ], United States	189	Range 11–14	ns	S	SWLS	S	FACES II	C	Pub
Rodríguez-Rivas et al. (2021) [ ], Chile	287	Range 15–18 ( = 15.95)	60.3	S	SLSS	S	FC	C	Pub
Salewski (2003) [ ], Germany	30	Range 14–19 ( = 17.2)	56.6	S	PWBQ	S	FACES II	C	Pub
Sastre & Ferrière (2000) [ ], France	100	Range 12–19	50.0	S	SWLS	S	SWFR	C	Pub
Schnettler et al. (2017) [ ], Chile	300	Range 10–17 ( = 13.2)	51.0	S	SWLS	P/S	SWFaL	C	Pub
Schnettler et al. (2018a) [ ], Chile	300	Range 10–17 ( = 13.2)	51.3	S	SWLS	P/S	SWFaL	C	Pub *
Schnettler et al. (2018b) [ ], Chile	340	Range 10–17 ( = 13.2)	ns	S	SWLS	P/S	SWFaL	C	Pub *
Schnettler et al. (2018c) [ ], Chile	470	Range 10–17 ( = 13.3)	52.3	S	SWLS	S	SWFaL	C	Pub
Schnettler et al. (2018d) [ ], Chile	303	Range 10–17 ( = 13.3)	48.5	S	SWLS	S	SWFaL	C	Pub
Schnettler et al. (2020) [ ], Chile	473	Range 10–17 ( = 13.3)	48.2	S	SWLS	S	SWFaL	C	Pub
Schnettler et al. (2021) [ ], Chile	470	Range 10–17 ( = 13.3)	47.7	S	SWLS	S	SWFaL	C	Pub
Schnettler et al. (2022) [ ], Chile	303	Range 10–17 ( = 13.3)	48.5	S	SWLS	S	SWFaL	C	Pub *
Seligson et al. (2003) [ ], United States	221	Range 11–14 ( = 12.33)	58.0	S	BMSLSS PANAS RGLS SLSS	S	MSLSS	V	Pub
Seligson et al. (2005) [ ], United States	518	Range 8–11 ( = 9.34)	46.7	S	PANAS RGLS SLSS	S	BMSLSS	C	Pub
Shek (1997a) [ ], China	365	Range 12–16	80.5	S	SWLS	S	F/MACS	C	Pub
Shek (1997c) [ ], China	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	50.6	S	SWLS	P/S	F/MACS	D	Pub
Shek (1998b) [ ], China (Time 1)	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	50.6	S	SWLS	P/S	F/MACS	L	Pub
Shek (1998b) [ ], China (Time 2)	378	Range 13–17 ( = 14.0)	ns	S	SWLS	P/S	F/MACS	L	Pub
Shek (1998c) [ ], China (Time 1)	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	50.6	S	SWLS	S	F/MACS	L	Pub
Shek (1998c) [ ], China (Time 1)	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	50.6	S	SWLS	I	AIS	L	Pub
Shek (1998c) [ ], China (Time 2)	378	Range 13–17 ( = 14.0)	ns	S	SWLS	S	F/MACS	L	Pub
Shek (1998c) [ ], China (Time 2)	378	Range 13–17 ( = 14.0)	ns	S	SWLS	I	AIS	L	Pub
Shek (2002d) [ ], China	229	Range 12–16	53.3	S	SWLS	S	F/MACS	D	Pub
Shek et al. (2001) [ ], China	1519	Range 11–18 ( = 13.5)	49.9	S	SWLS	S	F/MACS	C	Pub
Silva et al. (2020) [ ], United States	120	Range 13–15 ( = 14.36)	39.0	S	POMS	S	YESIMM	C	Pub
Soares et al. (2019) [ ], Portugal	503	Range 13–19 ( = 15.92)	37.0	S	SWLS	S	A&B	C	Pub
Song et al. (2018) [ ], China	428	Range 11–16 ( = 13.16)	65.0	S	SLSS	S	FACES II	C	Pub
Sun et al. (2015) [ ], China	1708	Range 14–18 ( = 15.03)	45.2	S	SLSS	S	FACES II	C	Pub
Taşdelen-Karçkay (2016) [ ], Turkey	436	Range 14–19 ( = 16.35)	44.0	S	SWLS	S	FLSS	V	Pub
Tian et al. (2015) [ ], China	1904	Range 9–14 ( = 11.25)	52.0	S	SLSS	S	BMSLSS	V	Pub
Vera et al. (2012) [ ], United States	168	Range 12–15 ( = 13.5)	55.0	S	PANAS SWLS	S	MSLSS	C	Pub
Veronese et al. (2012) [ ], Palestine	74	Range 7–15 ( = 10.80)	58.0	G	HFS	S	MSLSS	C	Pub
Veronese et al. (2012) [ ], Palestine	74	Range 7–15 ( = 10.80)	58.0	S	PANAS	S	MSLSS	C	Pub
Verrastro et al. (2020) [ ], Italy	1549	Range 7–14 ( = 11.1)	47.0	G	HFS	S	FACES IV	C	Pub
Verrastro et al. (2020) [ ], Italy	1549	Range 7–14 ( = 11.1)	47.0	S	PHS	S	FACES IV	C	Pub
Wang et al. (2021) [ ], United States	447	Range 12–18 ( = 15.09)	39.1	S	PANAS	S	NRI	C	Pub
Weber & Huebner (2015) [ ], United States	344	Range 11–14 ( = 12.23)	45.1	S	SLSS	S	MSLSS	C	Pub
Yuan et al. (2019) [ ], China	703	Range 10–13 ( = 12.5)	54.9	S	SLSS	S	PACS FACES II	C	Pub
Yun & Choi (2018) [ ], Korea	527	Range 10–12 ( = 11.42)	54.3	S	EWBS	S	BFRS	C	Pub
Zhao et al. (2015) [ ], China (Father migrating group)	145	Range 10–17 ( = 13.9)	60.0	S	SWLS	S	FACES II	C	Pub
Zhao et al. (2015) [ ], China (two-parent migrating sample)	96	Range 10–17 ( = 13.9)	55.2	S	SWLS	S	FACES II	C	Pub

Note. Happiness method: G = graphical assessment; S = self-report questionnaire. Happiness measure: ABS = Affect Balance Scale; PWBQ = Patients’ Well-Being Questionnaire for adolescents; BMSLSS = Brief Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale; CL = Cantril Ladder; EMMBSAR = Multidimensional Scale for the Measurement of Subjective Well-Being of Anguas-Plata and Reyes-Lagune; EWBS = Emotional Well-being Scale; GSL = Global Satisfaction with Life; GQA = General Questionnaire for Adolescents; HFS = Happiness Face Scale; HLTW = Happiness in the Last Two Weeks; HOL = Happiness Overall Life; HTOL = Happiness Taking into Account Overall Life; LS = Life Satisfaction; LSD = Life Satisfaction Domain; L3S = Life 3 Scale; OLS = Overall Life Satisfaction; MLSS = Multidimensional Life Satisfaction Scale; PANAS = Positive and Negative Affect Scale; PAS = Positive Affect Scale; PHS = Piers-Harris Children’s Concept Scale 2; PHAS = Perceived Happiness Status; PNA = Positive and Negative Affect; PNAA = Scale of Positive and Negative Affects for Adolescents; POMS = Profile of Mood States; QLQ = Quality of Life Questionnaire; RCA = Russell’s Core Affect; RGLS = Rating of Global Life Satisfaction; SLSS = Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale; SWB = Subjective Well-Being; SWLS = Satisfaction with Life Scale; WHO-5 WBI = World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index. Family Method: I = interview assessments; P/S = parent and self-report; S = self-report. Family measures: A&B = Attitudes and Behaviors survey; AIS = Adolescent Interview Schedule; BFRS = Brief Family Relationship Scale; BMSLSS = Brief Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale; CSRFFI = Colorado Self-Report of Family Functioning Inventory; FACES = Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales; FC = Family Conflict; FCC = Family Conflict Climate; FCS = Family Conflict Scale; FCLQ = Family Closeness Questions; FCQ = Family Communication Questions; FCSFR = Family Communication Subscale of Family Relationships; FES = Family Environment Scale; FLSS = Family Life Satisfaction Scale; F/MACS = Father/Mother–Adolescent Conflict Scale; FSD = Family Satisfaction Domain; FSS = Family Satisfaction Scale; GDSI = General Domain Satisfaction Index; ISCWeB = International Survey of Children’s Well-Being; LDS = Life Domains Satisfaction; MLSSA = Family Satisfaction subscale of the Multidimensional Life Satisfaction Scale for Adolescents; MSLSS = Multidimensional Students Life Satisfaction Scale; NRI = Network of Relationship Inventory; PACS = Parent-Adolescent Communication Scale; PCI = Parent-Child Intimacy; PRI = Pictorial Representation Index; QFIS = Quality of Family Interaction Scale; QFR = Quality of Family Relationships; SDDC = Satisfaction with Different Developmental Contexts; SDLD = Satisfaction with Different Life Domains; SWF = Satisfaction with Family; SWFaL = Satisfaction with Family Life; SWFLS = Satisfaction with Family Life Scale; SWFR = Satisfaction with Family Relationships; YESIMM = Aversive Parent–Child Interactions subscale of the Youth Everyday Social Interactions and Mood Measure. Research design: C = cross-sectional study; D = derived from a longitudinal study (one wave of a longitudinal study); F = 1-year follow-up study; L = longitudinal study; V = validation study of measure. Pub = published; * = Additional data retrieved from authors. ns = not specified.

3.3. Global Family Functioning, Environmental Variables, and Happiness

The impact of global family functioning and family environmental variables (i.e., family relationships and family dynamics) on happiness was supported by a large number of studies ( n = 39). Most articles ( Table 2 ) specifically discussed the impact of dysfunctional family functioning on happiness, from both the parents’ and children’s perspectives. Many studies showed that adequate and adaptive family functioning correlated positively with higher levels of happiness [ 18 , 24 , 134 , 136 , 174 , 179 , 180 , 181 , 182 , 183 , 184 ], considering both affective and cognitive components [ 22 , 43 , 185 ]. Furthermore, some studies showed that family environment and happiness correlated with adolescents’ gender and age [ 46 , 181 , 186 ]. Only one study found no significant relation between family functioning and adolescents’ happiness [ 187 ].

Children’s and adolescents’ global happiness correlated positively with family relationships [ 12 , 90 , 91 , 188 , 189 , 190 , 191 , 192 , 193 , 194 , 195 , 196 , 197 ]. Positive relationships within the family strongly predicted increased subjective happiness [ 172 , 198 , 199 ] and low depressive symptoms. Children who reported more daily activities with family members reported higher levels of happiness, regardless of the type of activity (e.g., talking, playing, learning together). Studies also indicated that adolescents’ perceptions of high mutuality and stability and a lack of severe problems in the family predicted their global satisfaction [ 1 , 200 ]. Studies further suggested that perceived good relationships in the family helped adolescents to develop feelings of freedom, love, and happiness [ 172 , 194 , 198 , 199 ].

Sociodemographic Variables: Age, Gender, and Socioeconomic Status

Sociodemographic variables (e.g., age, gender, socioeconomic status) represent a subtheme of environmental factors associated with happiness ( n = 21). The well-being of children and adolescents primarily depended on the closeness of their relationships with family members and, particularly, their parents. Children reported more satisfaction with their family relationships [ 198 ] relative to adolescents [ 43 , 146 ]. However, one study found no age or gender differences in the interaction between life satisfaction and family functioning [ 191 ]. Young people who perceived a higher quality parent–child relationship had greater and more stable life satisfaction from middle (i.e., aged 14–16 years) to late adolescence (i.e., aged 17–18 years) [ 197 ].

The negative correlation between family functioning and life satisfaction was affected by gender differences. Girls perceived less familial dysfunction relative to boys [ 46 ]. One study found that family satisfaction was the only significant predictor of girls’ life satisfaction [ 37 ]. Another study showed that boys with high overall satisfaction reported high stability and reciprocity and fewer problems in the family [ 200 ]. However, other studies found no gender differences in the association between these variables [ 136 , 179 , 201 ]. Only one study found no correlation between family functioning and the life satisfaction of adolescent boys from low-income families [ 202 ].

Shek (1998) [ 89 ] showed that adolescents’ life satisfaction correlated with the perceived family atmosphere (i.e., family happiness and family interactions), parent–adolescent relationship, and adolescent–parent communication at both data collection points (i.e., one year apart), regardless of gender. Thus, for both boys and girls, greater life satisfaction was associated with a higher level of perceived happiness in the family and more frequent positive conversations within the family. Some studies revealed that adolescents with a more positive family environment displayed greater happiness and life satisfaction [ 89 , 195 , 196 ]. Other studies revealed that the link between family functioning and life satisfaction was significantly stronger among adolescent girls, compared to adolescent boys [ 24 , 180 ].

Concerning socioeconomic status, Shek (2002) [ 177 ] showed that family functioning was more strongly related to adolescent adaptation among economically disadvantaged adolescents relative to non-economically disadvantaged adolescents. This suggests that family functioning may be associated with better adaptation in high-risk adolescents [ 22 , 161 ]. One study found that satisfaction with family functioning predicted the happiness of rural-urban migrant children—a subgroup with worse self-rated family financial situations [ 203 ].

Sample Characteristics and Methods of Assessment of the Reviewed Studies Investigating Global Family Functioning, Environment Variables, and Happiness ( n = 39).

	Child Characteristics			Happiness Measure		Family Measure
Author (Year), Country		Age	% Male	Method	Measure	Method	Measure	Res. Design	Pub
Ben-Zur (2003) [ ], Israel	112	Range 15–19 ( = 17.06)	48	S	LSS PANAS	P/S	RFMQ	C	Pub
Cacioppo et al. (2013) [ ], Italy	255	Range 15–17 ( = 15.98)	40.8	S	MSLSS	S	FAD	C	Pub
Chui & Wong (2017) [ ], China	1830	Range 10–19 ( = 14.2)	47.9	S	SWLS	S	FAI	C	Pub
Flouri & Buchanan (2003) [ ], United Kingdom	2722	Range 14–18 ( = 14.2)	41.3	S	HS	S	F/MIS	C	Pub
Gilman & Huebner (2006) [ ], United States	485	Range 11–18 ( = 14.45)	54.0	S	SLSS	S	BASC	C	Pub
Gómez et al. (2019) [ ], Chile	1392	Range 10–13 ( = 11.5)	54.2	S	SLSS	S	ISCWeB	C	Pub
Goswami (2012) [ ], United Kingdom	4673	Two age groups (8 and 10 year)	47.0	S	SLSS	S	MSLSS	C	Pub
Heaven et al. (1996) [ ], Australia	183	Range 13–17 ( = 13.3)	36.1	S	SWLS	S	FOS	C	Pub
Huebner et al. (2000) [ ], United States (Time 1)	321	Range 14–18 ( = 16.14)	35.0	S	SLSS	S	BASC	L	Pub
Huebner et al. (2000) [ ], United States (Time 2)	99	Range 14–18	34.5	S	SLSS	S	BASC	L	Pub
Lawler et al. (2015) [ ], 11 countries (United States sample)	784	Range 11–14 ( = 12.63)	ns	S	LSI	S	FRQ PIS	C	Pub
Lawler et al. (2015) [ ], 11 countries (international sample)	781	Range 10–14 ( = 12.06)	ns	S	LSI	S	FRQ PIS	N	Pub
Lawler et al. (2017) [ ], 11 countries (United States sample)	502	Range 10–12 ( = 10.66)	ns	S	LSI	S	FRQ PIS	C	Pub
Lawler et al. (2017) [ ], 11 countries (international sample)	502	Range 9–12 ( = 10.12))	ns	S	LSI	S	FRQ PIS	N	Pub
Lawler et al. (2018) [ ], South Korea and United States (SK sample)	489	Range 10–12	ns	S	SLSS	S	FRQ PIS	C	Pub
Lawler et al. (2018) [ ], South Korea and United States (US sample)	1286	Range 10–12 ( = 11.21)	ns	S	SLSS	S	FRQ PIS	C	Pub
Nevin et al. (2005) [ ], Ireland	294	Range 15–18 ( = 16.4)	40.0	S	OHI SWLS	S	FAD	C	Pub
Newland et al. (2014) [ ], United States	149	Range 12–14 ( = 13.0)	52.3	S	LSI	S	FRQ PIS	C	Pub
Newland et al. (2015) [ ], United States (5th grade)	502	Range 10–12 ( = 10.66)	54.8	S	LSI	S	FRQ PIS	C	Pub
Newland et al. (2015) [ ], United States (7th grade)	784	Range 12–14 ( = 12.63)	49.1	S	LSI	S	FRQ PIS	C	Pub
Newland et al. (2019) [ ], 14 countries	25,906	Range 9–14 ( = 11.4)	47.8	S	SLSS + OLS	S	FRQ	N	Pub
Rask et al. (2003) [ ], Finland	239	Range 12–17 ( = 14.0)	49.0	S	BSW/Y	P/S	FDM II	C	Pub
Sari & Dahlia (2018) [ ], Indonesia	193	Range 12–15 ( = 12.97)	50.3	S	SWLS PANAS	S	FAD	C	Pub
Sarriera et al. (2018) [ ], Brazil and Spain	6747	Range 11–14 ( = 12.07)	49.3	S	SLSS	S	ISCWeB	N	Pub
Shek (1997a) [ ], China	365	Range 12–16	80.5	S	SWLS	S	SFI	C	Pub
Shek (1997b) [ ], China	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	50	S	SWLS	S	SFI	D	Pub
Shek (1998a) [ ], China (Time 1)	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	50.6	S	SWLS	P/S	SFI	L	Pub
Shek (1998a) [ ], China (Time 2)	378	Range 13–17 ( = 14.0)	ns	S	SWLS	P/S	SFI	L	Pub
Shek (1998c) [ ], China (Time 1)	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	50.6	S	SWLS	S	SFI	L	Pub
Shek (1998c) [ ], China (Time 1)	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	50.6	S	SWLS	I	AIS	L	Pub
Shek (1998c) [ ], China (Time 2)	378	Range 13–17 ( = 14.0)	ns	S	SWLS	S	SFI	L	Pub
Shek (1998c) [ ], China (Time 2)	378	Range 13–17 ( = 14.0)	ns	S	SWLS	I	AIS	L	Pub
Shek (1999) [ ], China (Time 1)	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	51.0	S	SWLS	P/S	SFI	L	Pub
Shek (1999) [ ], China (Time 2)	378	Range 13–17 ( = 14.0)	ns	S	SWLS	P/S	SFI	L	Pub
Shek (2002b) [ ], China	1519	Range 11–18	ns	S	SWLS	S	FAI	C	Pub
Shek (2002c) [ ], China	361	Range 12–16 (M = 14.0)	66.4	S	SWLS	S	SFI FAD FAI	C	Pub
Shek (2002d) [ ], China	229	Range 12–16	53.3	S	SWLS	S	PPAR	D	Pub
Shek (2004) [ ], China	228	Range 12–16	46.5	S	SWLS	S	FAI	D	Pub
Shek (2005) [ ], China (Time 1)	229	Range 12–16	46.7	S	SWLS	S	FAI	L	Pub
Shek (2005) [ ], China (Time 2)	199	Range 13–17	ns	S	SWLS	S	FAI	L	Pub
Shek & Liang (2018) [ ], China	3328	Range 12–18 ( = 12.59)	51.7	S	SWLS	S	FAI	L	Pub
Shek & Liu (2014) [ ], China (Time 1)	4106	Range 14–15 ( = 14.65)	53.2	S	SWLS	S	FAI	L	Pub
Shek & Liu (2014) [ ], China (Time 2)	2667	Range 17–18	ns	S	SWLS	S	FAI	L	Pub
Shek et al. (2001) [ ], China	1519	Range 11–18 ( = 13.5)	49.9	S	SWLS	S	PPAR	C	Pub
Syanti & Rahmania (2019) [ ], Indonesia	118	Range 12–19	44.0	S	SWBS	S	FAD	C	Un
Tang et al. (2021) [ ], China	1060	Range 13–16 ( = 14.6)	ns	S	CHI	S	BFFQ	C	Pub *
Uusitalo-Malmivaara (2012) [ ], Finland	737	Range 11–12 ( = 12.10)	49.2	S	SHS	S	FRS	C	Pub
Uusitalo-Malmivaara & Lehto (2013) [ ], Finland	737	Range 11–12 ( = 12.10)	49.2	S	SHS	S	FRS	C	Pub
Wang et al. (2019) [ ], China	2229	Range 9–17 ( = 11.46)	52.0	S	PANAS PWI-SC SWLS	S	FAPGARI	C	Pub
Willroth et al. (2021) [ ], United States (Time 1)	674	Range 14–16 ( = 14.75)	ns	S	OLS	S	PCRQ	L	Pub
Zhou et al. (2018) [ ], China	1656	Range 16–19 ( = 15.8)	44.39	S	HS + MSLSS	S	FAD	C	Pub

Note. Happiness method: S = self-report questionnaire. Happiness measure: BSW/Y = Berne Questionnaire of Subjective Well-Being/Youth form; CHI = Chinese Happiness Inventory; HS = Happiness Scale; LSI = Life Satisfaction Indicator; LSS = Life Satisfaction Scale; MSLSS = Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale; OHI = Oxford Happiness Inventory; OLS = Overall Life Satisfaction; PANAS = Positive and Negative Affect Scale; SHS = Subjective Happiness Scale; SLSS = Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale; SWBS = Subjective Well-Being Scale; SWLS = Satisfaction with Life Scale. Family Method: I = interview assessments; P/S = parent and self-report; S = self-report. Family measure: AIS = Adolescent Interview Schedule; BASC = Behavior Assessment System for Children-Self-Report-Adolescent Form; BFFQ = Brief Family Function Questionnaire; FAD = Family Assessment Device; FAI = Family Assessment Instrument; FAPGARI = Family APGAR Index; FDM II = Family Dynamics Measure; F/MIS = Father/Mother Involvement Scale; FOS = Family-of-Origin Scale; FRS = Family Relationship Scale; FRQ = Family Relationship Quality; ISCWeB = International Survey of Children’s Well-Being; MSLSS = Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale; PCRQ = Parent-Child Relationship Quality; PIS = Parent Involvement Scale; PPAR = Perceived Parent–Adolescent Relationship; RFMQ = Relationship with Father/Mother Questionnaire; SFI = Self-Report Family Instrument. Research design: C = cross-sectional; D = derived from a longitudinal study (one wave of a longitudinal study); L = longitudinal; N = cross-national. Publication status: Pub = published; Un = not published; * = additional data retrieved from authors. ns = not specified.

3.4. Parental Differences

Parent gender was a central factor in studies investigating the association between happiness and family functioning in children and adolescents ( n = 17) ( Table 3 ). One study revealed that perceived family competence was associated with family members’ perceptions of parental dyadic qualities and individual functioning [ 131 ]. In particular, regardless of the informant (i.e., father, mother, and child), child satisfaction correlated negatively with family dysfunction [ 181 ]. No differences emerged between parents and children regarding the impact of family conflict [ 129 ] and family satisfaction on children’s happiness [ 169 ]. Finally, one study indicated no significant differences between parents and children in the association between children’s happiness and family functioning (i.e., cohesion, adaptability, communication, and family satisfaction) [ 27 ].

While the investigated studies highlighted differences between mothers and fathers, the results were contradictory and heterogeneous. Some studies reported that maternal understanding was closely related to adolescent life satisfaction [ 145 ] and overall adolescent satisfaction [ 200 ]. Adolescents with a positive relationship with their mother showed greater happiness than those with a poor mother–child relationship; however, this association was not significant for the father–child relationship [ 43 ].

Other research found that the father–child relationship was more closely correlated with indicators of adolescents’ happiness than the mother–child relationship [ 12 , 73 , 129 ]. Furthermore, the perceived father–adolescent relationship (but not the mother–adolescent relationship) correlated positively with children’s happiness [ 177 ]. For instance, Zhao et al. (2015) showed that children’s life satisfaction correlated positively with father–child cohesion, but not mother–child cohesion [ 178 ]. Although the involvement of both the father and the mother contributed significantly and independently to children’s happiness, the involvement of the father had a more substantial effect than the involvement of the mother [ 201 ].

Children’s and adolescents’ life satisfaction was positively correlated with parent–child relationship qualities [ 91 ]. The father–adolescent relationship correlated positively with positive affect and life satisfaction, while the mother–adolescent relationship correlated positively with life satisfaction and only weakly with positive affect [ 12 ]. However, one study showed that only the perceived father–adolescent relationship correlated positively with children’s life satisfaction [ 177 ].

Age and gender differences emerged in mother–child and father–child communication. Adolescents were significantly more satisfied with their communication with their mother than their communication with their father [ 30 ]. One study showed that girls reported greater openness with their mother and boys with their father [ 140 ]. Boys reported fewer problems and more open communication with their father, relative to girls [ 138 ], while no gender differences emerged in their communication with their mother [ 30 ]. Regarding age differences, early adolescents (i.e., aged 12–13 years) reported more positive open communication with their mother and their father relative to mid-adolescents (i.e., aged 14–16 years). In addition, communication problems with both parents increased with age. Overall, adolescents were generally satisfied with their communication with their parents (particularly their mother), and early adolescents were more positive about their communication with their parents compared to mid-adolescents [ 30 ].

Sample Characteristics and Methods of Assessment of the Reviewed Studies Investigating the Parental Differences ( n = 17).

	Child Characteristics			Happiness Measure		Family Measure
Author (Year), Country		Age	% Male	Method	Measure	Method	Measure	Res. Design	Pub
Ben-Zur (2003) [ ], Israel	112	Range 15–19 ( = 17.06)	48.0	S	LSS PANAS	P/S	RFMQ	C	Pub
Cava et al. (2014) [ ], Spain	1795	Range 11–18 ( = 14.2)	52.0	S	SWLS	S	PACS	C	Pub
Flouri & Buchanan (2003) [ ], United Kingdom	2722	Range 14–18 ( = 14.2)	41.3	S	HS	S	F/MIS	C	Pub
Ingelmo & Litago (2018) [ ], Spain	1409	Range 11–18 ( = 14.4)	49.6	S	CL	S	SWFR	C	Pub
Jackson et al. (1998) [ ], Holland	660	Range 13–15 ( = 13.5)	46.4	S	ABS CL	S	PACS	C	Pub
Jiménez et al. (2009) [ ], Spain	565	Range 11–18 ( = 13.6)	51.0	S	SWLS	S	PACS	C	Pub
Ljubetić & Reić Ercegovac (2020) [ ], Croatia	101	Range 10–17 ( = 15.4)	31.7	S	GQA	S	QFIS	C	Pub
Newland et al. (2019) [ ], 14 countries	25,906	Range 9–14 ( = 11.4)	47.8	S	SLSS + OLS	S	FRQ	N	Pub
Rask et al. (2003) [ ], Finland	239	Range 12–17 ( = 14.0)	49.0	S	BSW/Y	P/S	FDM II	C	Pub
Schnettler et al. (2017) [ ], Chile	300	Range 10–17 ( = 13.2)	51.0	S	SWLS	P/S	SWFaL	C	Pub
Shek (1997c) [ ], China	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	50.6	S	SWLS	P/S	F/MACS	D	Pub
Shek (1998b) [ ], China (Time 1)	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	50.6	S	SWLS	P/S	F/MACS	L	Pub
Shek (1998b) [ ], China (Time 2)	378	Range 13–17 ( = 14.0)	ns	S	SWLS	P/S	F/MACS	L	Pub
Shek (1999) [ ], China (Time 1)	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	51.0	S	SWLS	P/S	SFI	L	Pub
Shek (1999) [ ], China (Time 2)	378	Range 13–17 ( = 14.0)	ns	S	SWLS	P/S	SFI	L	Pub
Shek (2002d) [ ], China	229	Range 12–16	53.3	S	SWLS	S	F/MACS PPAR	D	Pub
Shek & Liang (2018) [ ], China	3328	Range 12–18 ( = 12.6)	51.7	S	SWLS	S	FAI	L	Pub
Verrastro et al. (2020) [ ], Italy	1549	Range 7–14 ( = 11.1)	47.0	G	HFS	S	FACES IV	C	Pub
Verrastro et al. (2020) [ ], Italy	1549	Range 7–14 ( = 11.1)	47.0	S	PHS	S	FACES IV	C	Pub
Zhao et al. (2015) [ ], China (father migrating group)	145	Range 10–17 ( = 13.9)	60.0	S	SWLS	S	FACES II	C	Pub
Zhao et al. (2015) [ ], China (two-parent migrating group)	96	Range 10–17 ( = 13.9)	55.2	S	SWLS	S	FACES II	C	Pub

Note. Happiness method: G = graphical assessment; S = self-report questionnaire. Happiness measure: ABS = Affect Balance Scale; BSW/Y = Berne Questionnaire of Subjective Well-Being/Youth form; CL = Cantril Ladder; GQA = General Questionnaire for Adolescents; HFS = Happiness Face Scale; HS = Happiness Scale; LSS = Life Satisfaction Scale; OLS = Overall Life Satisfaction; PANAS = Positive and Negative Affect Scale; PHS = Piers-Harris Children’s Concept Scale 2; SLSS = Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale; SWLS = Satisfaction with Life Scale. Family Method: P/S = parent and self-report; S = self-report. Family measures: F/MACS = Father/Mother–Adolescent Conflict Scale; FAI = Family Assessment Instrument; FDM II = Family Dynamics Measure; F/MIS = Father/Mother Involvement Scale; FRQ = Family Relationship Quality; PACS = Parent-Adolescent Communication Scale; PPAR = Perceived Parent–Adolescent Relationship; QFIS = Quality of Family Interaction Scale; RFMQ = Relationship with Father/Mother Questionnaire; SFI = Self-Report Family Instrument; SWFaL = Satisfaction with Family Life; SWFR = Satisfaction with Family Relationships. Source of information (info). Research design: C = cross-sectional; D = derived from a longitudinal study (one wave of a longitudinal study); L = longitudinal; N = cross-national. Publication status: Pub = published. ns = not specified.

3.5. Longitudinal Studies and Predictions of Happiness over Time

Finally, the last theme ( n = 13) highlighted the relevance of assessing the relation between happiness and family functioning longitudinally ( Table 4 ). Some of the studies showed that children’s and adolescents’ life satisfaction correlated with family functioning and parental relationships over time [ 22 , 24 , 43 , 89 , 180 , 181 , 199 ]. In particular, one longitudinal study suggested that the relation between adolescents’ perceived family functioning and their psychological happiness was bidirectional [ 24 ].

Generally, the results showed that adolescent psychological happiness at Time 1 was related to perceived family functioning at Time 2. Therefore, children’s life satisfaction predicted children’s family functioning over time [ 181 ]. Moreover, the longitudinal linkage between family functioning and adolescent adjustment was stronger for adolescent girls than for adolescent boys [ 24 ]. At the same time, some studies revealed that adolescents with more poorly perceived family functioning at Time 1 (i.e., negative family environment) had poorer life satisfaction at Time 2 [ 22 , 89 , 180 ]. Notably, a negative family atmosphere, more significant family dysfunction, and more parent–adolescent conflict predicted a negative trend in adolescents’ happiness over time [ 89 ]. Overall, youth with a more positive family environment in middle adolescence (i.e., aged 14–16 years) reported higher levels of happiness during late adolescence (i.e., aged 17–18 years) [ 197 ].

Regarding the different dimensions of family functioning, studies found that family cohesion, but not perceived family adaptability, significantly predicted changes in adolescents’ happiness over time [ 110 ]. Family cohesion and open communication with parents at Time 1 positively correlated with happiness at Time 2 [ 175 , 176 ]. Furthermore, increased family cohesion was associated with increased life satisfaction and positive affection [ 110 ], which may have promoted happiness over time [ 175 ]. Studies also showed that parent–adolescent conflict predicted changes in adolescents’ psychological happiness over time. Thus, more significant parent–adolescent conflict at Time 1 tended to be associated with lower adolescent life satisfaction at Time 2 [ 89 , 129 , 181 ]. One study showed that children’s life satisfaction and family cohesion remained significantly related, despite gradually deteriorating during early and middle adolescence (i.e., aged 13–15 years). Youth from more cohesive families often had higher life satisfaction when they entered middle school [ 117 ], while pre-adolescents who reported higher life satisfaction at the beginning of middle school (i.e., aged 11 years) tended to experience a slower decline in family cohesion during adolescence.

Sample Characteristics and Methods of Assessment of the Longitudinal Studies ( n = 13).

	Child Characteristics			Happiness Measure		Family Measure
Author (Year), Country		Age	% Male	Method	Measure	Method	Measure	Res. Design	Pub
Gao & Potwarka (2021) [ ], China	675	Range 12–15	47.3	S	SLSS PANAS	S	FACES II	L	Pub
Huebner et al. (2000) [ ], United States (Time 1)	321	Range 14–18 ( = 16.14)	35.0	S	SLSS	S	BASC	L	Pub
Huebner et al. (2000) [ ], United States (Time 2)	99	Range 14–18	34.5	S	SLSS	S	BASC	L	Pub
Jhang (2021) [ ], China (Time 1)	1273	Range 12–15 ( = 13.55)	49.0	S	SWLS	S	FACES III	L	Pub
Jhang (2021) [ ], China (Time 2)	1028	Range 14–17	ns	S	SWLS	S	FACES III	L	Pub
Jiménez et al. (2014) [ ], Spain (Time 1)	1319	Range 12–16 ( = 13.5)	46.0	S	SWLS	S	PACS	L	Pub
Jiménez et al. (2014) [ ], Spain (Time 2)	554	Range 12–16 ( = 13.7)	46.0	S	SWLS	S	PACS	L	Pub
Lin & Yi (2019) [ ], China	2690	Range 13–17 ( = 13.3)	51.2	S	LS	S	FACES III	L	Pub
Shek (1998a) [ ], China (Time 1)	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	50.6	S	SWLS	P/S	SFI	L	Pub
Shek (1998a) [ ], China (Time 2)	378	Range 13–17 ( = 14.0)	ns	S	SWLS	P/S	SFI	L	Pub
Shek (1998b) [ ], China (Time 1)	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	50.6	S	SWLS	P/S	F/MACS	L	Pub
Shek (1998b) [ ], China (Time 2)	378	Range 13–17 ( = 14.0)	ns	S	SWLS	P/S	F/MACS	L	Pub
Shek (1998c) [ ], China (Time 1)	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	50.6	S	SWLS	S	F/MACS SFI	L	Pub
Shek (1998c) [ ], China (Time 1)	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	50.6	S	SWLS	I	AIS	L	Pub
Shek (1998c) [ ], China (Time 2)	378	Range 13–17 ( = 14.0)	ns	S	SWLS	S	F/MACS SFI	L	Pub
Shek (1998c) [ ], China (Time 2)	378	Range 13–17 ( = 14.0)	ns	S	SWLS	I	AIS	L	Pub
Shek (1999) [ ], China (Time 1)	429	Range 12–16 ( = 13.0)	51.0	S	SWLS	P/S	SFI	L	Pub
Shek (1999) [ ], China (Time 2)	378	Range 13–17 ( = 14.0)	ns	S	SWLS	P/S	SFI	L	Pub
Shek (2005) [ ], China (Time 1)	229	Range 12–16	46.7	S	SWLS	S	FAI	L	Pub
Shek (2005) [ ], China (Time 2)	199	Range 13–17	ns	S	SWLS	S	FAI	L	Pub
Shek & Liang (2018) [ ], China	3328	Range 12–18 ( = 12.59)	51.7	S	SWLS	S	FAI	L	Pub
Shek & Liu (2014) [ ], China (Time 1)	4106	Range 14–15 ( = 14.65)	53.2	S	SWLS	S	FAI	L	Pub
Shek & Liu (2014) [ ], China (Time 2)	2667	Range 17–18	ns	S	SWLS	S	FAI	L	Pub
Willroth et al. (2021) [ ], United States (Time 1)	674	Range 14–16 ( = 14.75)	ns	S	OLS	S	PCRQ	L	Pub

Note. Happiness method: S = self-report questionnaire. Happiness measures: LS = Life Satisfaction; OLS = Overall Life Satisfaction; PANAS = Positive and Negative Affect Scale; SLSS = Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale; SWLS = Satisfaction with Life Scale. Family Method: I = interview assessments; P/S = parent and self-report; S = self-report. Family measures: AIS = Adolescent Interview Schedule; BASC = Behavior Assessment System for Children-Self-Report-Adolescent Form; FACES = Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales; F/MACS = Father/Mother–Adolescent Conflict Scale; FAI = Family Assessment Instrument; PACS = Parent-Adolescent Communication Scale; PCRQ = Parent-Child Relationship Quality; SFI = Self-Report Family Instrument. Source of information (info). Research design: L = longitudinal. Publication status: Pub = published. ns = not specified.

4. Discussion

A total of 124 studies were systematically reviewed to identify relevant dimensions of family functioning associated with children’s and adolescents’ happiness. Four themes emerged from a review of these studies: (1) family dimensions and happiness; (2) global family functioning (i.e., family functioning and family relationships), environmental variables and happiness; (3) parental differences; (4) longitudinal studies.

Regarding the first theme, 91 studies examined the relationship between family dimensions (i.e., family cohesion and adaptability, family satisfaction and communication, and family conflict) and children’s and adolescents’ happiness. The results highlighted that family cohesion significantly predicted changes in happiness, life satisfaction, and positive affect over time [ 77 , 113 , 117 , 175 ]. In other words, increased family cohesion and adaptability were associated with higher levels of happiness in children and adolescents [ 20 , 110 , 122 ]. Thus, positive family dimensions may contribute directly to children’s and adolescents’ sense of happiness, contentment, and general life satisfaction [ 111 , 121 ].

Furthermore, in both boys and girls, positive communication with the mother and the father and high family satisfaction were directly associated with increased happiness [ 25 , 138 , 170 , 174 ]. The possibility to express oneself freely at home (i.e., to speak openly about any subject) was associated with greater life satisfaction for adolescents [ 114 ]. Adolescents who communicated effectively with their families probably felt that they could share their points of view and feelings openly and sincerely with their parents, and they may have interpreted this communication as a sign of parental support, trust, and closeness [ 30 , 140 ]. This may be especially true for girls, for whom the influence of family communication on happiness was slightly greater [ 27 , 171 ], possibly due to gender differences in cultural norms and socialization. Different parental socialization styles based on child gender [ 204 ] may also explain why communication tends to be more open between mothers and daughters and between fathers and sons [ 140 ].

On the other hand, communication problems and higher levels of family conflict were associated with lower happiness for children and adolescents [ 126 , 128 , 139 ]. When communication was open and trouble-free, children and adolescents were more likely to report satisfaction with their families, positive affect, and low levels of conflict, relative to children and adolescents who reported less communication with parents [ 30 ]. This finding suggests that family relationships which are perceived to be good may help children and adolescents develop feelings of freedom, love, and happiness [ 172 ], underlining that family dimensions play an essential role in influencing children’s and adolescents’ happiness [ 46 ].

As regards the second theme, 39 studies examined the association between global family functioning (i.e., family functioning and family relationships), family environment variables, and children’s and adolescents’ happiness. Specifically, a more positive perception of family functioning was related to better emotional well-being in children and adolescents [ 184 , 185 , 191 , 203 ]. Furthermore, regardless of the cultural background, children’s family relationships influenced their levels of happiness [ 1 , 196 ] more significantly than any other variable. Bad parent–child relationships were usually accompanied by lower levels of family satisfaction and happiness [ 145 ]. Thus, feeling happy at home may contribute to both boys’ and girls’ happiness [ 174 ].

The reported studies provided support for the association between global family functioning and happiness during adolescence, even though adolescents consolidate new social relationships with friends and partners during this developmental period [ 36 ]. The family is the context in which the first emotional relationships develop, and where children learn to respect and establish positive relationships of love and respect for others [ 194 ]. Parents in a well-functioning family can provide emotional support to children, allowing them to express their emotions. A warm and open family communicates happiness to children [ 185 ], giving them a sense of security, emotional connection, and trust [ 178 ].

A subtheme of environmental factors associated with happiness concerned differences in sociodemographic variables. Some family factors predicted individual differences in happiness and life satisfaction during adolescence. In particular, more positive family environments were associated with greater happiness [ 191 , 197 ]. Furthermore, the findings supported both stability and change in perceived levels, and the relevance of certain life satisfaction domains, among children and adolescents. Young people who perceived a higher quality parent–child relationship had elevated and stable life satisfaction from middle adolescence (i.e., aged 14–16 years) to late adolescence (i.e., aged 17–18 years) [ 197 ].

Other studies found that young people’s life satisfaction was negatively correlated with age in all global and life (i.e., family satisfaction) domains [ 48 , 146 ]. The decrease in happiness levels during this period suggests that pre-adolescence may be a stressful phase of development, during which cognitive, physical, and emotional changes strongly influence young people’s overall sense of happiness [ 27 ]; family members may play an essential role in accompanying them through these changes. In particular, the decline in both family cohesion and happiness during early and middle adolescence (i.e., aged 12–16 years) may be explained by both the multiple challenges that adolescents face and the more significant conflict that they tend to experience with parents, which tend to result in less participation in family activities; this may reduce adolescents’ perceived family cohesion and life satisfaction [ 117 ].

Regarding the third theme identified, 17 studies explored parental gender differences in the association between happiness and family functioning. The selected studies produced contradictory results: a single study reported that a positive mother–child relationship, but not a father–child relationship, was associated with greater happiness in children [ 43 ]. However, six studies found significant correlations with the father–child relationship and not the mother–child relationship [ 12 , 73 , 129 , 177 , 178 , 201 ]. These results suggest that relationships with both mothers and fathers are relevant to children’s and adolescents’ happiness.

However, the reviewed studies found that the father–child relationship was more closely related to indicators of happiness in adolescents than the mother–child relationship [ 12 , 73 , 129 ]. Indeed, the father–child relationship, father–child cohesion, and father–child conflict predicted children’s life satisfaction, while no equivalent associations were found for the mother [ 129 , 177 , 178 ]. These results suggest that the effect of father–child proximity on children’s and adolescents’ development is not related to mother–child proximity [ 178 ].

However, these studies, which suggest that fathers have the most significant impact on children’s and adolescents’ well-being, contradict the literature showing that mothers tend to be more significant in determining child developmental outcomes. While fathers tend to spend less time with children relative to mothers [ 205 ], they may be more committed and dedicated to children when they do spend time together, focusing on the specific situation at hand. Children may perceive their father’s behavior as an essential aspect of their relationship that increases their happiness over the long term [ 73 ]. Future studies should investigate the differences between mothers and fathers and the different perspectives between parents and children, to better understand these aspects.

Finally, the last theme that emerged (13 studies) highlighted the importance of evaluating the relation between happiness and family functioning over time, from a predictive perspective. Several studies showed that, regardless of the informant (i.e., father, mother, or child) and the sequence of data collection (i.e., simultaneously vs. longitudinally), children’s happiness was correlated with family functioning [ 89 , 181 ]. The results of both the simultaneous and longitudinal studies consistently showed that the cognitive component of happiness (i.e., life satisfaction) was significantly associated with family functioning and family relationships [ 22 , 43 , 199 ]. In addition, the longitudinal studies suggested that the relation between perceived family functioning and adolescents’ happiness may be bidirectional [ 24 ]; therefore, it is not possible to confirm a univocal causal link between these factors.

Regarding subdimensions of family functioning, studies found that family cohesion [ 110 , 175 ], family communication [ 176 ], and parent–adolescent conflict [ 89 , 129 ] significantly predicted changes in adolescent happiness over time: more significant parent–adolescent conflict at Time 1 tended to be associated with a decline in adolescent life satisfaction at Time 2 [ 89 ], and greater family cohesion and open communication with parents tended to be associated with increased life satisfaction over time [ 117 , 176 ]. Also, concerning family conflict, the data showed that the relation between parent–adolescent conflict and adolescent emotional well-being could be bidirectional [ 89 ]. Future studies should further investigate the causal links between individual and family variables.

In conclusion, the findings of this study suggest that family dimensions may influence the affective and cognitive components of children’s and adolescents’ happiness [ 30 , 46 , 77 , 110 , 111 , 112 , 124 , 125 , 135 ]. In particular, the reviewed findings demonstrate the significance of family bonds and support for adolescents, indicating that, when family members provide help, affection, and understanding, children and adolescents experience multiple benefits that undoubtedly affect their development of positive psychological experiences [ 145 , 200 ].

Limitations and Strengths of the Studies, and Future Research Directions

Despite increasing research interest in the relation between happiness and family functioning (as evidenced by the growing number of publications in recent years), the investigated studies suffered from some methodological limitations. First, the use of self-report measures may have exposed the research to social desirability bias. Future studies should employ a multi-informant and multi-method methodology combining qualitative measures (i.e., structured or semi-structured interviews and observational measures) or multi-informant questionnaires (i.e., parent and teacher reports) with self-reports. Second, the use of cross-sectional designs did not enable causal links to be drawn between variables. Thus, future studies should implement longitudinal procedures to better understand the factors that contribute to the happiness of children and adolescents. Furthermore, the heterogeneity of the samples (with respect to, e.g., geographical scope, size, and age range) limit the generalizability of the results.

The lack of a coherent theoretical model to define the construct of happiness represents a significant gap in the literature. This may explain the variety in both measurement tools and operationalizations of the construct in the investigated studies. Compounding this, some of the investigated studies did not clearly define happiness, positive affect, or life satisfaction. Therefore, future research should explicitly make the psychological construct operational. Additionally, future research should explore the association between attachment styles and children’s and adolescents’ happiness during development.

A further limitation of the present research is the possibility that methodological biases may have affected the study selection, due to the arbitrariness of the constructs and the interpretation of the reviewers. However, two independent evaluators excluded all articles that deviated from a precise definition of happiness or that analyzed family factors other than family functioning. Thus, attempts were made to target the constructs of interest.

A future research direction might be to examine overall effect sizes, which were not addressed in the present study. Moreover, as the present work focused on the relation between happiness and family functioning in non-clinical samples, an equivalent analysis in clinical samples may provide important new insights. Finally, the present review suggests the relevance of the father–child relationship, father–child cohesion, and father–child conflict in predicting children’s and adolescents’ happiness. Future research should further investigate the differences between fathers and mothers, using multi-informant and mixed-methods procedures and a longitudinal approach.

However, the present work also has significant strengths, including compliance with a rigorous systematic review protocol with clearly-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Indeed, a careful research strategy carried out by two independent evaluators was employed to acquire all relevant articles. Another strength is the high reviewer reliability during the screening process, reflecting a transparent selection methodology. Uniquely, the review represents the first study to synthesize the literature on happiness in the family context during development, filling a significant gap in the literature pertaining to the possible impact of family functioning on children’s and adolescents’ happiness. Finally, the review identified heterogeneous measurements of happiness and family functioning during development, suggesting that future studies should develop a more standardized approach to obtain more consistent results.

5. Conclusions

The present review included studies that investigated the relationship between family functioning and happiness. The reviewed studies found a positive relation between happiness and family functioning in different cultures and age groups. Thus, family factors seem to play an essential role in increasing or diminishing the happiness of children and adolescents. However, many aspects remained largely unexplored, and more research is needed to determine how family variables (and particularly family functioning) affect children’s and adolescents’ happiness. Finally, more longitudinal studies are required to test causal relationships. Increased evidence of the potential direction of causality of these variables would extend our knowledge of happiness, as it is currently unclear whether family variables affect levels of happiness, positive affect, and life satisfaction, and whether these relationships are bidirectional.

Funding Statement

This research received no external funding.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, R.B., F.I. and J.P. methodology, R.B., F.I. and J.P; validation, R.B., F.I. and J.P., formal analysis, R.B., F.I. and J.P; investigation, F.I.; resources, R.B., F.I. and J.P.; data curation, R.B., F.I. and J.P.; writing—original draft preparation, F.I.; writing—review and editing, R.B., F.I. and J.P.; supervision, R.B. and J.P.; project administration, R.B. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Note: References [ 1 , 3 , 7 , 12 , 18 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 24 , 25 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 33 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 46 , 71 , 73 , 77 , 89 , 90 , 91 , 101 , 110 , 111 , 112 , 113 , 114 , 115 , 116 , 117 , 118 , 119 , 120 , 121 , 122 , 123 , 124 , 125 , 126 , 127 , 128 , 129 , 130 , 131 , 132 , 133 , 134 , 135 , 136 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 140 , 141 , 142 , 143 , 144 , 145 , 146 , 147 , 148 , 149 , 150 , 151 , 152 , 153 , 154 , 155 , 156 , 157 , 158 , 159 , 160 , 161 , 162 , 163 , 164 , 165 , 166 , 167 , 168 , 169 , 170 , 171 , 172 , 173 , 174 , 175 , 176 , 177 , 178 , 179 , 180 , 181 , 182 , 183 , 184 , 185 , 186 , 187 , 188 , 189 , 190 , 191 , 192 , 193 , 194 , 195 , 196 , 197 , 198 , 199 , 200 , 201 , 202 , 203 ] are the studies included in the systematic review.

Happiness Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on happiness.

Happiness is something which we can’t describe in words it can only be felt from someone’s expression of a smile. Likewise, happiness is a signal or identification of good and prosperous life. Happiness is very simple to feel and difficult to describe. Moreover, happiness comes from within and no one can steal your happiness.

Can Money Buy You Happiness?

Every day we see and meet people who look happy from the outside but deep down they are broken and are sad from the inside. For many people, money is the main cause of happiness or grief. But this is not right. Money can buy you food, luxurious house, healthy lifestyle servants, and many more facilities but money can’t buy you happiness.

And if money can buy happiness then the rich would be the happiest person on the earth. But, we see a contrary image of the rich as they are sad, fearful, anxious, stressed, and suffering from various problems.

In addition, they have money still they lack in social life with their family especially their wives and this is the main cause of divorce among them.

Also, due to money, they feel insecurity that everyone is after their money so to safeguard their money and them they hire security. While the condition of the poor is just the opposite. They do not have money but they are happy with and stress-free from these problems.

In addition, they take care of their wife and children and their divorce rate is also very low.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Happiness Comes from Within

As we now know that we can’t buy happiness with money and there is no other shortcut to happiness. It is something that you feel from within.

In addition, true happiness comes from within yourself. Happiness is basically a state of mind.

Moreover, it can only be achieved by being positive and avoiding any negative thought in mind. And if we look at the bright side of ourselves only then we can be happy.

Happiness in a Relationship

People nowadays are not satisfied with their relationship because of their differences and much other reason. But for being happy in a relationship we have to understand that there are some rules or mutual understanding that keeps a relationship healthy and happy.

Firstly, take care of yourself then your partner because if you yourself are not happy then how can you make your partner happy.

Secondly, for a happy and healthy relationship give you partner some time and space. In addition, try to understand their feeling and comfort level because if you don’t understand these things then you won’t be able to properly understand your partner.

Most importantly, take initiative and plan to go out with your partner and family. Besides, if they have plans then go with them.

To conclude, we can say that happiness can only be achieved by having positive thinking and enjoying life. Also, for being happy and keeping the people around us happy we have to develop a healthy relationship with them. Additionally, we also have to give them the proper time.

FAQs about Happiness

Q.1 What is True Happiness? A.1 True happiness means the satisfaction that you find worthy. The long-lasting true happiness comes from life experience, a feeling of purpose, and a positive relationship.

Q.2 Who is happier the rich or the poor and who is more wealthy rich or poor? A.2 The poor are happier then the rich but if we talk about wealth the rich are more wealthy then the poor. Besides, wealth brings insecurity, anxiety and many other problems.

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Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

Research on the Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness: An Annotated Bibliography

The key to happiness. Does it exist? What if you could give such a gift to your children? Believe it or not, scientific research suggests you can. Lost amid headlines about preschoolers on anti-depressant drugs and teenage suicides is the good news that parents can and do make a difference with regards to their children's happiness--now and later in life. This article reviews current research on the foundations of emotional well-being to reveal how parents can establish the roots of adult happiness in their children.

Happiness certainly comes to some people more easily than it does others, but nature does not trump nurture when it comes to well-being. Only about half of a child's overall level of happiness is determined by her genetic make-up. [1] A large team of child development experts recently summarized current thinking regarding the nature vs. nurture debate:

Virtually all contemporary researchers agree that the development of children is a highly complex process that is influenced by the interplay of nature and nurture. The influence of nurture consists of the multiple nested context in which children are reared, which include their home, extended family, child care settings, community, and society, each of which is embedded in the values, beliefs, and practices of a given culture...In simple terms, children affect their environments at the same time that their environments are affecting them...At every level of analysis, from neurons to neighborhoods, genetic and environmental effects operate in both directions. [2]

Nature and nurture are both important determinants of happiness; furthermore, they are inextricably intertwined. As the primary nurturers of their children--and because they have at least some measure of control over the environments and contexts in which their children are raised--parents have a tremendous impact on whether or not their children grow up into happy adults.

The primary components of a happy life

While at first this may seem tautological (what makes a happy life is happiness) there is a range of positive emotion beyond just happiness. Gratitude and love, for example, are not the same than happiness, and yet they contribute as much or more to a happy life as happiness does. So a happy life is, for these purposes, an abundance of positive emotions and those things that make positive emotions easier to come by. Pleasurable experiences, such as a funny movie or a day at the beach, can trigger positive thoughts and feelings. Fulfilling activities, like the exercise of unique strengths and talents, can lead one to achieve "flow," that state of peak performance studied by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced "chick-SENT-me-high"). Happy people also have meaningful relationships with others and the strong social skills and high emotional intelligence needed to form them. [4]

The primary components of a happy life--positive feelings, flow and fulfillment, emotional intelligence and strong social bonds--are deeply intertwined. Experiencing and expressing positive emotion is at the heart of almost all love and friendship. [5] Emotions, if they are positive, can contribute to the growth of new skills and competencies (and therefore flow and fulfillment); if they are negative, they often undermine such growth. [6] Emotional intelligence enables children to read other people's body language, facial expressions, and social cues--which in turn helps them form strong social bonds. [7] Positive thoughts and emotions protect people from negative emotions like fear, melancholy, and anxiety, allowing them to fully invest their mental energy in activity which will promote flow, mastery or gratification. [8] This article briefly separates the childhood roots of adult happiness from each other so parents can better understand how to help their children live meaningful, joyful lives.

Positive thoughts and emotions

So how do we help children have more positive thoughts and emotions? Seligman shows that positive thoughts and emotions can be broken down into those about the past, such as gratitude and forgiveness; those about the present, such as the enjoyment of life's pleasures; and those about the future, such as excitement, faith, trust, optimism, and hope. Parents can increase the positive thoughts and emotions children feel about the past by making positive reflection habitual. Rituals that encourage children to express gratitude and thankfulness will do just this. Equally important is teaching your children to forgive, which ultimately turns anger and other negative feelings about the past into neutral or even somewhat positive memories, which researchers have shown makes life more satisfying. [12]

The lightening-fast pace of our lives threatens the positive thoughts and emotions we might otherwise feel about the present. [13] Children can be taught to slow things down in order to really "savor" life's pleasures. According to Seligman, savoring is the Buddhist-like "awareness of pleasure and of the deliberate conscious attention to the experience of pleasure." [14] Making such slow-down-and-enjoy-life time habitual in childhood will make for a happier child and form habits for a happier adulthood.

Parents can also help children create more positive thoughts and emotions towards the future by teaching them to be optimists. Learning to be an optimist means learning to recognize and then dispute negative or pessimistic thoughts. It also means helping children change the way they view negative life events: pessimists see the bad things in life as permanent and pervasive, while optimists see negative events as transient, specific to that one situation, and not personal. [15] Importantly, research shows that while some people are, of course, more inherently optimistic, others can learn optimism. [16] Helping children process inevitable negative life experiences optimistically will allow more space for them to have positive thoughts and emotions about the future.

Other positive thoughts and emotions about the future should also be encouraged. Excitement and hope can be supported through routines which encourage children to express their hopes for the future and their excitement about coming events. Opportunities to develop faith can be provided for children, for example, through regular attendance at religious activities. [17] And trust is a positive emotion parents can develop in their children by ensuring that they and other caregivers are always deserving of their children's confidence.

Flow, fulfillment and gratification

[A] person in flow is completely focused...Self-consciousness disappears, yet one feels stronger than usual. The sense of time is distorted: hours seem to pass by in minutes. When a person's entire being is stretched in the full functioning of body and mind, whatever one does becomes worth doing for its own sake; living becomes its own justification...Only after the task is completed do we have the leisure to look back on what has happened, and then we are flooded with gratitude for the excellence of that experience--then, in retrospect, we are happy. [18]

Flow comes to us when we face a clear set of goals that require well-defined responses. The challenge at hand needs to be neither too difficult given our skill-level, nor too easy. "If challenges are too high," writes Csikszentmihalyi, "one gets frustrated, then worried, and eventually anxious." When challenges are set too low, we eventually get bored and lose our focus. [19] Unlike pleasurable activities, which are relatively easy to engage in (like going out for dinner), gratifying activities are the application of one's unique strengths and so are more difficult to come by (like cooking a gourmet meal at home).

Researchers have shown that "early environments that facilitate competence and a sense of personal efficacy" foster children who flourish. [20] Children find flow and fulfillment in environments that encourage them to exercise their personal strengths; Seligman recommends that parents facilitate this in part by acknowledging, naming, and rewarding the strengths children display. [21] Chores and other must-do activities can be tailored to reflect children's unique abilities--a child who is inherently nurturing, for example, can be in charge of getting his little sister dressed. This would both help him develop a strength (the ability to love and be loved), and make the chore gratifying. He may even achieve flow while doing his chores! By encouraging children to spend more time engaging their strengths in gratifying activities, parents help steer them towards a meaningful and joyful life.

Family time and interactions are also important in helping children achieve flow. Csikszentmihayi found that teenagers who find flow on average spend four hours a week more than other teens interacting with their family. "This begins to explain why they learn to enjoy more whatever they are doing," writes Csikszentmihayi. "The family seems to act as a protective environment where a child can experiment in relative security, without having to be self-conscious and worry about being defensive or competitive." [22]

Another important skill parents teach children is how to deal with free-time and solitude in a way that promotes fulfillment and flow rather than loneliness and depression. Many studies have shown that people are more likely to feel depressed when they are alone; this is thought to be because without other people around to interact with, those who lack internal motivation lose the external motivation and goals other people provide them. As their mind loses its sense of purpose and begins to focus on thoughts that make them anxious, people often seek out stimulation that will screen out anxiety-producing thoughts--such as having a drink or turning on the television. [23]

According to Csikszentmihalyi's research, we rarely find flow in passive leisure activities such as watching television. Children learn to achieve flow when they are encouraged to participate in the kinds of activities likely to produce it, namely those that both challenge them and provide clear goals and immediate feedback. Free-time should be meaningful--either work or play, but not neither. The idea is to ensure that children understand which components of their lives they really enjoy, and which cause them stress and sadness; guided daily reflection can help generate such understanding. When children habitually engage in activities that develop their strengths and help them find flow, they will both be happier children and be poised to know what careers and activities will provide them fulfillment as adults.

Relating to others and the importance of emotional intelligence

How well children establish relationships with other children matters to their well-being both in childhood and later in life. [27] Children consistently rejected by their peers have more problems; for example, they are more likely to get in trouble with the law, to do poorly in school, or to have psychiatric problems as adults. [28] David Myers, in his exhaustive work on the links between marriage and happiness, concludes that "there are few stronger predictors of happiness than a close, nurturing, equitable, intimate, lifelong companionship with one's best friend." [29] So how do parents help their children develop the emotional intelligence and social skills they need to establish such strong social bonds?

Emotional intelligence and social competence are rooted in the parent-child bond. Studies show that when parents and caregivers pay close attention and respond to the emotional cues expressed by their children, children learn to regulate their emotions better. [30] Such parental responsiveness is at the heart of secure attachment relationships between parents and young children, and researchers have paid a great deal of attention to how secure attachments contribute to social competence. [31] Findings show that infants and toddlers who are securely attached to their mothers or their daytime caregivers are more mature and positive in their interactions with others. Children who have secure attachments with both their mothers and their caregivers are the most socially skilled of all. [32] "Securely attached young children compared with their insecurely attached peers have an easier time developing positive, supportive relationships with teachers, friends, and others whom they encounter as they grow up." [33]

Research also shows that securely attached children "have a more balanced self-concept, more advanced memory processes, a more sophisticated grasp of emotion, a more positive understanding of friendship, and they show greater conscience development than insecurely attached children." [34] It goes without saying that parents should do everything within their power to establish and maintain secure attachments with children. To do so, parents need to be consistent, dependable, and sensitive to children's intentions and needs. [35]

Gottman's research shows, however, that while love, dependability, and sensitivity may create a secure attachment, they are not enough to foster emotional intelligence in children. [36] Parents also need to "emotion coach" children by offering them empathy and helping them cope with negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, and fear. Emotion coaching helps build and maintain secure attachments and develop loyalty and affection between parents and children. [37] Gottman's research reveals that parents who are effective emotion coaches are more than just aware of their children's emotions. Such parents see emotional expressions in their children--even anger and frustration--as opportunities to connect with and teach their children. They listen to their children empathetically, helping to explore and validate a child's feelings. Importantly, they don't stop there: they help the child verbally label the emotions he is feeling, and then they set limits with the child ("it is not okay to hit your sister") while helping her problem solve. [38]

Parents can also nurture budding social skills in other ways. Parents help children form friendships by structuring their play environments. The research of Carollee Howes shows that toddlers play best and display more maturity with children they know well and play with often. [39] These positive play experiences provide children with their earliest lessons about forming and keeping friendships. And friendships--as opposed to just familiarity--help children learn to deal with conflict in positive ways, for example by negotiating and compromising. [40]

Teaching happiness

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Gottlieb, G. (2002). Individual Development and Evolution : The Genesis of Novel Behavior . Mahwah, N.J., Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Gottman, J. M. (1997). Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child . New York, Simon & Schuster.

Gottman, J. M., L. F. Katz, et al. (1997). Meta-Emotion : How Families Communicate Emotionally . Mahwah, N.J., Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Hartup, W. W. and B. Laursen (1993). Conflict and Context in Peer Relations. Children on Playgrounds : Research Perspectives and Applications . C. H. Hart. Albany, State University of New York Press : 44-84.

Howes, C. (1988). "Peer Interaction in Young Children." Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development (Serial No. 217) 53 (1).

Howes, C., C. Rodning, et al. (1988). "Attachement and Child Care: Relationships with Mother and Caregiver." Early Childhood Research Quarterly 3 : 403-416.

Larson, R. W. (1997). "The Emergence of Solitude as a Constructive Domain of Experience in Early Adolescence." Child Development 68 (1): 80-93.

Myers, D. G. (2000). The American Paradox : Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty . New Haven Conn., Yale University Press.

--- (2000). "The Funds, Friends, and Faith of Happy People." American Psychologist 55 (56-67).

Rubin, K. H., W. Bukowski, et al. (1998). Peer Interactions, Relationships, and Groups. Handbook of Child Psychology . W. Damon. New York, John Wiley & Sons. Volume 3: Social, Emotional, and Personality Development, Fifth Edition: 619-700.

Seligman, M. E. P. (1991). Learned Optimism . New York, A.A. Knopf.

--- (1995). The Optimistic Child . New York, Harper Perennial.

--- (2002). Authentic Happiness . New York, Free Press.

Shonkoff, J. P., D. Phillips, et al. (2000). From Neurons to Neighborhoods : The Science of Early Child Development . Washington, D.C., National Academy Press.

Worthington, E. L. J. and M. Scherer (2004). "Forgiveness Is an Emotion-Focused Coping Strategy That Can Reduce Health Risks and Promote Health Resilience: Theory, Review, and Hypotheses." Psychology & Health 19 (3): 385-405.

[1] Seligman (2002), p. 47.

[2] Shonkoff, Phillips and National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development. (2000), pp. 23-25. See also ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Gottlieb</Author><Year>2002</Year><RecNum>35</RecNum><Pages>.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><ISBN>0805840826 (cloth alk. paper)</ISBN><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Gottlieb, Gilbert</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><TITLE>Individual development and evolution : the genesis of novel behavior</TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED>Mahwah, N.J.</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>Lawrence Erlbaum Associates</PUBLISHER><YEAR>2002</YEAR><PAGES>xii, 231</PAGES><KEYWORDS><KEYWORD>Nature and nurture.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Behavior evolution.</KEYWORD></KEYWORDS><CALL_NUMBER>SEL QH438.5UCSB:Main Lib QH438.5.G68 2002 Sciences Engineering Library</CALL_NUMBER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Gottlieb (2002).

[3] Seligman.

[4] Happier people are not, however, necessarily wealthier. Once a person’s most basic needs are met, more money does little to nothing to increase happiness. For a review, see ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Diener</Author><Year>in press</Year><RecNum>38</RecNum><Pages>.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>0</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Ed Diener</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Martin Seligman</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>in press</YEAR><TITLE>Beyond Money: Toward and Economy of Well-Being</TITLE><SECONDARY_TITLE>Psychologoical Science in the Public Interest</SECONDARY_TITLE></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Diener and Seligman (in press).

[5] Seligman, p. 42 .

[6] Shonkoff, Phillips and National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development., p. 104.

[7] Gottman (1997), p. 143.

[8] Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi (1988); Fredrickson and Levenson (1998).

[9] Fredrickson (1998); Fredrickson (2001)

[10] Seligman, p. 39.

[11] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Estrada</Author><Year>1997</Year><RecNum>11</RecNum><Suffix>.</Suffix><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>0</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Carlos A. Estrada</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Alice M. Isen</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Mark J. Young</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>1997</YEAR><TITLE>Positive Affect Facilitates Integration of Information and Decreases Anchoring in Reasoning among Physicians</TITLE><SECONDARY_TITLE>Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes</SECONDARY_TITLE><VOLUME>72</VOLUME><NUMBER>1</NUMBER><PAGES>117-135</PAGES></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Estrada, Isen and Young (1997) .

[12] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Seligman</Author><Year>2002</Year><RecNum>9</RecNum><Pages>, p. 77.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Seligman, Martin E. P.</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>2002</YEAR><TITLE>Authentic Happiness</TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New York</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>Free Press</PUBLISHER></MDL></Cite><Cite><Author>Worthington</Author><Year>2004</Year><RecNum>33</RecNum><Pages>.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>0</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Worthington, Everett L Jr.</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Scherer, Michael</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>2004</YEAR><TITLE>Forgiveness is an emotion-focused coping strategy that can reduce health risks and promote health resilience: Theory, review, and hypotheses</TITLE><SECONDARY_TITLE>Psychology & Health</SECONDARY_TITLE><VOLUME>19</VOLUME><NUMBER>3</NUMBER><PAGES>385-405</PAGES></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Seligman, p. 77; Worthington and Scherer (2004).

[13] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Gleick</Author><Year>1999</Year><RecNum>12</RecNum><Pages>.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><YEAR>1999</YEAR><ISBN>0679408371</ISBN><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Gleick, James</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><TITLE>Faster : the acceleration of just about everything</TITLE><EDITION>1st</EDITION><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New York</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>Pantheon Books</PUBLISHER><PAGES>x, 324</PAGES><KEYWORDS><KEYWORD>Time Psychological aspects Popular works.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Time Social aspects Popular works.</KEYWORD></KEYWORDS><CALL_NUMBER>SEL QB209UCD:Shields QB209 .G48 1999UCSB:Main Lib QB209.G48 1999 Sciences Engineering LibraryUCI:Sci Lib QB209 .G48 1999 BarUCR:Science QB209 .G48 1999UCSC:S & E Lib QB209 .G48 1999UCSD:S & E QB209 .G48 1999 StacksUCB:Bus&Econ QB209 .G48 1999UCB:Moffitt QB209 .G48 1999UCLA:College QB209 .G48 1999 StacksCSL:State Lib QB209 .G48 1999 General Coll</CALL_NUMBER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Gleick (1999).

[14] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Seligman</Author><Year>2002</Year><RecNum>9</RecNum><Pages>, p. 107.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Seligman, Martin E. P.</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>2002</YEAR><TITLE>Authentic Happiness</TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New York</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>Free Press</PUBLISHER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Seligman, p. 107.

[15] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Seligman</Author><Year>1995</Year><RecNum>36</RecNum><Pages>.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Seligman, Martin E. P.</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>1995</YEAR><TITLE>The Optimistic Child</TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New York</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>Harper Perennial</PUBLISHER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Seligman (1995).

[16] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Seligman</Author><Year>1991</Year><RecNum>13</RecNum><Pages>, see especially Chapter 12.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><YEAR>1991</YEAR><ISBN>0394579151</ISBN><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Seligman, Martin E. P.</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><TITLE>Learned optimism</TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New York</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>A.A. Knopf</PUBLISHER><PAGES>319</PAGES><KEYWORDS><KEYWORD>Optimism</KEYWORD></KEYWORDS><CALL_NUMBER>ck BJ1477UCSD:SSH BJ1477 .S45 1990 Stacks</CALL_NUMBER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Seligman (1991), see especially Chapter 12.

[17] Decades of research show a correlation between well-being and religion—for example, religious individuals are more likely to be healthy than non-religious individuals; additionally, they are more likely to live longer, to fight depression better given difficult circumstances, and to be somewhat happier and more satisfied with life than nonreligious people. For a review, see ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Myers</Author><Year>2000</Year><RecNum>24</RecNum><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>0</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>David G. Myers</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>2000</YEAR><TITLE>The Funds, Friends, and Faith of Happy People</TITLE><SECONDARY_TITLE>American Psychologist</SECONDARY_TITLE><VOLUME>55</VOLUME><NUMBER>56-67</NUMBER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Myers (2000) . While some of the relationship between religion and well-being is undoubtedly due to the increased social support that often comes with a religious community, research has also shown that the link between religion and well-being is caused by the degree that “religions instill hope for the future and create meaning in life.” See ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Seligman</Author><Year>2002</Year><RecNum>9</RecNum><Pages>, p. 60.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Seligman, Martin E. P.</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>2002</YEAR><TITLE>Authentic Happiness</TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New York</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>Free Press</PUBLISHER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Seligman, p. 60.

[18] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Csikszentmihalyi</Author><Year>1997</Year><RecNum>18</RecNum><Pages>, pp. 31-32.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><YEAR>1997</YEAR><ISBN>0465045138</ISBN><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><TITLE>Finding flow : the psychology of engagement with everyday life</TITLE><EDITION>1st</EDITION><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New York</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>BasicBooks</PUBLISHER><PAGES>ix, 181</PAGES><SECONDARY_TITLE>MasterMinds</SECONDARY_TITLE><KEYWORDS><KEYWORD>Happiness.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Conduct of life.</KEYWORD></KEYWORDS><CALL_NUMBER>SHLDS-GEN BF575.H27UCD:Shields BF575.H27 C848 1997UCI:Langson BF575.H27 C848 1997UCR:Rivera BF575.H27 C848 1997UCSC:McHenry BF575.H27 C848 1997UCSD:SSH BF575.H27 C848 1997 Stacks</CALL_NUMBER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Csikszentmihalyi (1997), pp. 31-32.

[19] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Csikszentmihalyi</Author><Year>1997</Year><RecNum>18</RecNum><Pages>, p. 30.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><YEAR>1997</YEAR><ISBN>0465045138</ISBN><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><TITLE>Finding flow : the psychology of engagement with everyday life</TITLE><EDITION>1st</EDITION><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New York</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>BasicBooks</PUBLISHER><PAGES>ix, 181</PAGES><SECONDARY_TITLE>MasterMinds</SECONDARY_TITLE><KEYWORDS><KEYWORD>Happiness.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Conduct of life.</KEYWORD></KEYWORDS><CALL_NUMBER>SHLDS-GEN BF575.H27UCD:Shields BF575.H27 C848 1997UCI:Langson BF575.H27 C848 1997UCR:Rivera BF575.H27 C848 1997UCSC:McHenry BF575.H27 C848 1997UCSD:SSH BF575.H27 C848 1997 Stacks</CALL_NUMBER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Ibid., p. 30.

[20] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Shonkoff</Author><Year>2000</Year><RecNum>14</RecNum><Pages>, p. 32.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><YEAR>2000</YEAR><ISBN>0309069882 (hardcover alk. paper)</ISBN><TITLE>From neurons to neighborhoods : the science of early child development</TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED>Washington, D.C.</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>National Academy Press</PUBLISHER><PAGES>xviii, 588</PAGES><KEYWORDS><KEYWORD>Child development United States.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Preschool children United States.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Preschool children Services for United States.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Nature and nurture United States.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Early childhood education United States.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Child, Preschool education United States.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Community Networks United States.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Online resources.</KEYWORD></KEYWORDS><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Shonkoff, Jack P.</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Phillips, Deborah</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development.,</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><URL>http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9824.html</URL><CALL_NUMBER>BIOSTAX WS 105UCD:Shields HQ767.9 .F76 2000Main HQ767.9.F76 2000 Library:Main LibraryUCI:Langson HQ767.9 .F76 2000UCR:Rivera HQ767.9 .F76 2000UCSC:McHenry HQ767.9 .F76 2000UCSD:SSH HQ767.9 .F76 2000 StacksUCB:Ed/Psych HQ767.9 .F76 2000 *2 copies (copy 1)UCB:Ed/Psych HQ767.9 .F76 2000 *2 copies copy 2UCLA:Biomed WS 105 F9315 2000 StacksCSL:State Lib HQ767.9 .F76 2000 General CollCSL:Capitol HQ767.9 .F76 2000</CALL_NUMBER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Shonkoff, Phillips and National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development., p. 32.

[21] Importantly, Seligman distinguishes between strengths , which are moral and contribute to virtues (such as the ability to love and be loved), and talents , which are non-moral (such as being good at soccer). For more information about helping children develop strengths , and how this contributes to personal happiness see Part II in ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Seligman</Author><Year>2002</Year><RecNum>9</RecNum><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Seligman, Martin E. P.</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>2002</YEAR><TITLE>Authentic Happiness</TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New York</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>Free Press</PUBLISHER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Seligman .

[22] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Csikszentmihalyi</Author><Year>1997</Year><RecNum>18</RecNum><Pages>, p. 122.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><YEAR>1997</YEAR><ISBN>0465045138</ISBN><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><TITLE>Finding flow : the psychology of engagement with everyday life</TITLE><EDITION>1st</EDITION><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New York</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>BasicBooks</PUBLISHER><PAGES>ix, 181</PAGES><SECONDARY_TITLE>MasterMinds</SECONDARY_TITLE><KEYWORDS><KEYWORD>Happiness.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Conduct of life.</KEYWORD></KEYWORDS><CALL_NUMBER>SHLDS-GEN BF575.H27UCD:Shields BF575.H27 C848 1997UCI:Langson BF575.H27 C848 1997UCR:Rivera BF575.H27 C848 1997UCSC:McHenry BF575.H27 C848 1997UCSD:SSH BF575.H27 C848 1997 Stacks</CALL_NUMBER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Csikszentmihalyi, p. 122. See also ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Csikszentmihalyi</Author><Year>1993</Year><RecNum>17</RecNum><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><YEAR>1993</YEAR><ISBN>0521415780</ISBN><TITLE>Talented teenagers : the roots of success and failure</TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED>Cambridge England ; New York, N.Y.</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>Cambridge University Press</PUBLISHER><PAGES>x, 307</PAGES><KEYWORDS><KEYWORD>Gifted teenagers Longitudinal studies.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Teenagers and the environment Longitudinal studies.</KEYWORD></KEYWORDS><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Rathunde, Kevin Raymond</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Whalen, Samuel</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><CALL_NUMBER>MAIN BF724.3.G53UCD:Shields BF724.3.G53 C85 1993Main BF724.3.G53 C85 1993 Library:Main LibraryUCR:Rivera BF724.3.G53 C85 1993UCSC:McHenry BF724.3.G53C85 1993UCSD:SSH BF724.3.G53 C85 1993 StacksUCB:Ed/Psych BF724.3.G53 C85 1993UCLA:YRL BF724.3.G53 C85 1993 StacksUCLA:Biomed WS 462 C958t 1993 Stacks</CALL_NUMBER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde and Whalen (1993) .

[23] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Csikszentmihalyi</Author><Year>1997</Year><RecNum>18</RecNum><Pages>, p. 65</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><YEAR>1997</YEAR><ISBN>0465045138</ISBN><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><TITLE>Finding flow : the psychology of engagement with everyday life</TITLE><EDITION>1st</EDITION><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New York</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>BasicBooks</PUBLISHER><PAGES>ix, 181</PAGES><SECONDARY_TITLE>MasterMinds</SECONDARY_TITLE><KEYWORDS><KEYWORD>Happiness.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Conduct of life.</KEYWORD></KEYWORDS><CALL_NUMBER>SHLDS-GEN BF575.H27UCD:Shields BF575.H27 C848 1997UCI:Langson BF575.H27 C848 1997UCR:Rivera BF575.H27 C848 1997UCSC:McHenry BF575.H27 C848 1997UCSD:SSH BF575.H27 C848 1997 Stacks</CALL_NUMBER></MDL></Cite><Cite><Author>Csikszentmihalyi</Author><Year>1997</Year><RecNum>18</RecNum><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><YEAR>1997</YEAR><ISBN>0465045138</ISBN><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><TITLE>Finding flow : the psychology of engagement with everyday life</TITLE><EDITION>1st</EDITION><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New York</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>BasicBooks</PUBLISHER><PAGES>ix, 181</PAGES><SECONDARY_TITLE>MasterMinds</SECONDARY_TITLE><KEYWORDS><KEYWORD>Happiness.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Conduct of life.</KEYWORD></KEYWORDS><CALL_NUMBER>SHLDS-GEN BF575.H27UCD:Shields BF575.H27 C848 1997UCI:Langson BF575.H27 C848 1997UCR:Rivera BF575.H27 C848 1997UCSC:McHenry BF575.H27 C848 1997UCSD:SSH BF575.H27 C848 1997 Stacks</CALL_NUMBER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Csikszentmihalyi, p. 65 . See also ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Larson</Author><Year>1997</Year><RecNum>26</RecNum><Pages>.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>0</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR> Reed W. Larson</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>1997</YEAR><TITLE>The Emergence of Solitude as a Constructive Domain of Experience in Early Adolescence</TITLE><SECONDARY_TITLE>Child Development</SECONDARY_TITLE><VOLUME>68</VOLUME><NUMBER>1</NUMBER><PAGES>80-93</PAGES><DATE>Feb</DATE></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Larson (1997).

[24] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Gottman</Author><Year>1997</Year><RecNum>16</RecNum><Pages>, p. 16. See also pages 25, 39.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Gottman, John Mordechai</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>1997</YEAR><TITLE>Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child</TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New York</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>Simon & Schuster</PUBLISHER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Gottman, p. 16. See also pages 25, 39.

[25] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Shonkoff</Author><Year>2000</Year><RecNum>14</RecNum><Pages>, p. 264.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><YEAR>2000</YEAR><ISBN>0309069882 (hardcover alk. paper)</ISBN><TITLE>From neurons to neighborhoods : the science of early child development</TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED>Washington, D.C.</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>National Academy Press</PUBLISHER><PAGES>xviii, 588</PAGES><KEYWORDS><KEYWORD>Child development United States.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Preschool children United States.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Preschool children Services for United States.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Nature and nurture United States.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Early childhood education United States.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Child, Preschool education United States.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Community Networks United States.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Online resources.</KEYWORD></KEYWORDS><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Shonkoff, Jack P.</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Phillips, Deborah</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development.,</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><URL>http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9824.html</URL><CALL_NUMBER>BIOSTAX WS 105UCD:Shields HQ767.9 .F76 2000Main HQ767.9.F76 2000 Library:Main LibraryUCI:Langson HQ767.9 .F76 2000UCR:Rivera HQ767.9 .F76 2000UCSC:McHenry HQ767.9 .F76 2000UCSD:SSH HQ767.9 .F76 2000 StacksUCB:Ed/Psych HQ767.9 .F76 2000 *2 copies (copy 1)UCB:Ed/Psych HQ767.9 .F76 2000 *2 copies copy 2UCLA:Biomed WS 105 F9315 2000 StacksCSL:State Lib HQ767.9 .F76 2000 General CollCSL:Capitol HQ767.9 .F76 2000</CALL_NUMBER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Shonkoff, Phillips and National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development., p. 264.

[26] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Diener</Author><Year>2002</Year><RecNum>19</RecNum><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>0</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Ed Diener</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Martin E. P. Seligman</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>2002</YEAR><TITLE>Very Happy People</TITLE><SECONDARY_TITLE>Psychological Science</SECONDARY_TITLE><VOLUME>13</VOLUME><NUMBER>1</NUMBER><PAGES>81-84.</PAGES></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Diener and Seligman (2002) .

[27] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Rubin</Author><Year>1998</Year><RecNum>27</RecNum><Pages>.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>7</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Rubin, K. H.</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Bukowski, W.</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Parker, J. G.</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>1998</YEAR><TITLE>Peer interactions, relationships, and groups.</TITLE><SECONDARY_AUTHORS><SECONDARY_AUTHOR>W. Damon</SECONDARY_AUTHOR></SECONDARY_AUTHORS><SECONDARY_TITLE>Handbook of Child Psychology</SECONDARY_TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New York</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>John Wiley & Sons</PUBLISHER><VOLUME>Volume 3: Social, Emotional, and Personality Development, Fifth Edition</VOLUME><PAGES>619-700</PAGES></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Rubin, Bukowski and Parker (1998).

[28] For an excellent review, see pages 163-165 in Shonkoff, Phillips and National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development. As with many of the factors that contribute to a happy life, it is important to note that while correlations have been found between well-being and the discussed variables, causality is not fully understood. In this case, for example, is it peer rejection that causes later problems in life, or is it the behaviors that get the child rejected in the first place that causes them? Similarly, do happy people have more friends simply because they are happy, and therefore are more pleasant to be around, or are they happy because they have more friends? In most cases, the causal arrows probably go both ways, e.g., happiness causes people to be more likable and having more friends makes people happier.

[29] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Myers</Author><Year>2000</Year><RecNum>28</RecNum><Pages>,</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><YEAR>2000</YEAR><ISBN>0300081111 (alk. paper)</ISBN><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Myers, David G.</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><TITLE>The American paradox : spiritual hunger in an age of plenty</TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New Haven Conn.</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>Yale University Press</PUBLISHER><PAGES>xv, 414</PAGES><KEYWORDS><KEYWORD>United States Moral conditions.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Social ethics United States.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Communitarianism United States.</KEYWORD></KEYWORDS><CALL_NUMBER>MAIN HN90.M6UCD:Shields HN90.M6 M94 2000Main HN90.M6 M94 2000 Library:Main LibraryUCI:Langson HN90.M6 M94 2000UCR:Rivera HN90.M6 M94 2000UCSC:McHenry HN90.M6 M94 2000UCSD:SSH HN90.M6 M94 2000 StacksUCB:Main HN90.M6 M94 2000UCLA:YRL HN90.M6 M94 2000 StacksGTU:GTUsupp HN90.M6 M94 2000GTU:GTU Lib HN90.M6 M94 2000GTU:SFTS Lib HN90.M6 M94 2000CSL:State Lib HN90.M6 M94 2000 General Coll</CALL_NUMBER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Myers (2000), cited in Seligman, page 187.

[30] For a review, see pages 30-35 in Gottman.

[31] For a review, see pages 236-238 in Shonkoff, Phillips and National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development.

[32] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Howes</Author><Year>1988</Year><RecNum>37</RecNum><Pages>.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>0</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Carollee Howes</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Carol Rodning</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Darlene C. Galluzzo</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Lisabeth Myers</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>1988</YEAR><TITLE>Attachement and Child Care: Relationships With Mother and Caregiver</TITLE><SECONDARY_TITLE>Early Childhood Research Quarterly</SECONDARY_TITLE><VOLUME>3</VOLUME><PAGES>403-416</PAGES></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Howes, Rodning, Galluzzo and Myers (1988).

[33] Shonkoff, Phillips and National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development., p. 236.

[34] For a review of this literature, see Ibid., pp. 236-237.

[35] Belsky (1999).

[36] Gottman, p. 16; Gottman, Katz and Hooven (1997).

[37] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Gottman</Author><Year>1997</Year><RecNum>16</RecNum><Pages>, p. 17.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>1</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Gottman, John Mordechai</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>1997</YEAR><TITLE>Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child</TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED>New York</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>Simon & Schuster</PUBLISHER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Gottman, p. 17.

[38] See Gottman, particularly Chapter 3, to learn more about how to emotion coach your child.

[39] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Howes</Author><Year>1988</Year><RecNum>34</RecNum><Pages>.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>0</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Carolee Howes</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>1988</YEAR><TITLE>Peer interaction in young children</TITLE><SECONDARY_TITLE>Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development (Serial No. 217)</SECONDARY_TITLE><VOLUME>53</VOLUME><NUMBER>1</NUMBER></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Howes (1988).

[40] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Hartup</Author><Year>1993</Year><RecNum>32</RecNum><Pages>.</Pages><MDL><REFERENCE_TYPE>7</REFERENCE_TYPE><AUTHORS><AUTHOR>Hartup, W.W.</AUTHOR><AUTHOR>Laursen, B.</AUTHOR></AUTHORS><YEAR>1993</YEAR><TITLE>Conflict and context in peer relations</TITLE><SECONDARY_AUTHORS><SECONDARY_AUTHOR>Hart, Craig H.</SECONDARY_AUTHOR></SECONDARY_AUTHORS><SECONDARY_TITLE>Children on playgrounds : research perspectives and applications</SECONDARY_TITLE><PLACE_PUBLISHED>Albany</PLACE_PUBLISHED><PUBLISHER>State University of New York Press</PUBLISHER><PAGES>44-84</PAGES><ISBN>0791414671079141468X (pbk.)</ISBN><CALL_NUMBER>MAIN GV191.63UCD:Shields GV191.63 .C47 1993Main GV191.63.C47 1993 Library:Main LibraryUCI:Langson GV191.63 .C47 1993UCR:Rivera GV191.63 .C47 1993UCLA:YRL GV191.63 .C47 1993 Stacks</CALL_NUMBER><KEYWORDS><KEYWORD>Outdoor recreation for children.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Playgrounds Social aspects.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Child development.</KEYWORD><KEYWORD>Social interaction in children.</KEYWORD></KEYWORDS></MDL></Cite></EndNote> Hartup and Laursen (1993).

About the Author

Christine Carter

Christine Carter, Ph.D. is a Senior Fellow at the Greater Good Science Center. She is the author of The New Adolescence: Raising Happy and Successful Teens in an Age of Anxiety and Distraction (BenBella, 2020), The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less (Ballantine Books, 2015), and Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents (Random House, 2010). A former director of the GGSC, she served for many years as author of its parenting blog, Raising Happiness . Find out more about Christine here .

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My Happy Childhood Memories with Grandpa

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Happiness in Children by Kaitlyn Dickie , Mark D. Holder , John-Tyler Binfet LAST REVIEWED: 26 July 2017 LAST MODIFIED: 26 July 2017 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0188

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Children’s and Adolescents’ Happiness and Family Functioning: A Systematic Literature Review

1. Introduction

1.1. Family Functioning and Happiness

1.2. The Present Study

2.1. Search Strategy

2.2. Study Screening Selection

2.3. Data Extraction

3.1. Study Characteristics

3.1.1. Happiness Measures

3.1.2. Family Functioning Measures

3.2. Family Dimensions Predicting Happiness

3.2.1. Family Cohesion and Adaptability

3.2.2. Family Conflict

3.2.3. Family Communication and Satisfaction

3.3. Global Family Functioning, Environmental Variables, and Happiness

Sociodemographic Variables: Age, Gender, and Socioeconomic Status

3.4. Parental Differences

3.5. Longitudinal Studies and Predictions of Happiness over Time

4. Discussion

Limitations and Strengths of the Studies, and Future Research Directions

5. Conclusions

Funding Statement

Author Contributions

Institutional Review Board Statement

Informed Consent Statement

Data Availability Statement

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