“This is a great group of students, and they came up with some ideas that I never would have dreamed of. I’m so proud of them, and I think they all had fun with the assignment.” She said.

The assignment? It is about being generous to each other. The students are instructed to do a good deed to people other than their relatives. They can spend the $5 to accomplish the task.

Her goal in the unusual assignment?

“I just wanted the children to learn about giving back,” Croy said.

You can read what her students did by following the link below.

Source: www.nwanews.com

The study reveals that married people’s drive to live is to provide to their children that carries their happiness in life. However, they also desire to get their investment of time and money from their children which drives them to think that their children brings happiness.

The process is like this: Marriage is at its peak of happiness when children is still not present, it flows on until the expectancy of children but it decreases sharply when children comes because of the troubles and hardship encountered. But when the children reaches the legal age to leave the house and go away, that is where happiness is restored.

Source: www.foxnews.com

Raising a happy kid is not as difficult as it seems. Every children has capacity to be happy their entire lives. All one needs is patience and an open mind and by following the five simple steps for a life full of blissful happiness.

Five Steps to Lifelong Joy

Connect with others.

More than any other single factor we can control, connection is the key to a happy childhood, and adulthood. Connection, in the form of unconditional love from an adult, helps foster self-confidence. Try to create an atmosphere at home in which your child feels cared for, welcomed, and treated fairly. According to a study conducted by the National Committee for Citizens in Education, Washington, DC. “When parents are involved in their children’s education at home, their children do better in school.” Without this feeling, kids shy away from new things and experiences.

Foster a can-do attitude.

This is one of the most reliable defenses against depression and despair at any age. Children watch and learn from how you deal with disappointment, be it in your career or at an athletic event or even just in being cut off in traffic. You can encourage competition, making sure that your child experiences both victory and defeat, and help her deal with each. You can use humor to deal with the pain, or bits of philosophy, or simply let your children see that you never give up.

Pretend and play.

Unstructured play hones children’s imagination, teaches critical problem-solving skills, and trains them to tolerate frustration. It also helps children learn that doing things again and again leads to improvement. In fact, play is the most important “work” your child can do. Practice, as part of structured activity, trains children how to receive help and get the most from other adults, such as good teachers and coaches.

Create opportunities for mastery.

With mastery comes confidence, leadership skills, initiative, and an enduring desire for hard work. It transforms a child (or an adult) from a reluctant, fearful learner into a motivated player. One of the great goals of parents, teachers, and coaches should be to find areas in which a child might experience mastery, then, make it possible for the child to feel this potent sensation. Once there, children want to go there again and again.

Provide recognition.

The feeling of being valued by others (friends, family, community) is key. You can exert a tremendous positive influence through the recognition you offer. We adults too quickly forget how much it meant to us when we were young – it meant the world to us, and to children today it still does. Recognition in turn reinforces the sense of connection that all children need.

Keep It Simple

It’s important to say something further about mastery and the hot topic of self-esteem. Some parents think the way to boost a child’s self-esteem is to lavish him with praise. Not so. Self-esteem is rooted in mastery. So, if you want your child to have high self-regard, do not go out of your way to offer praise. Go out of your way to make sure he has plenty of opportunities to experience mastery. And always remember to make sure your child feels connected to others and valued for who he actually is, rather than for just his accomplishments. Children who focus only on mastery, rather than mastery and connection, become “accomplishment junkies,” always striving for the next thing and never happy with what they have.

One more word: It may be tempting to skip playtime because it seems trivial. Don’t. Play is the time children engage fully with what they are doing. So, if your preschooler is interested in taking apart an action figure over and over, let him. If your school-age child likes bicycle racing, let him work with his friends to figure out how to make his bike go faster and pursue his passion. The skills he will build as he “plays” with adjusting his spokes, installing new brakes, or searching the Internet for racing tips,are far greater than just learning about bikes.

Source: www.gather.com

Psychologist Mark Holder and graduate student Judi Wallace from the University of British Columbia, Canada studied 315 children aged nine to ten from public and private schools ”measuring spirituality and other factors such as temperament and social relations that can affect an individual’s sense of happiness.” What they found out was surprising: spirituality contributes 6.5 to 16.5% of a child’s happiness. ”From our perspective, it’s a whopping big effect,” said Holder. “I expected it to be much less – I thought their spirituality would be too immature to account for their well-being.” In contrast, adults only account four or five percent of their happiness.

”Spirituality is not the same thing as religion, Mr. Holder and Ms. Wallace were careful to point out. While religion is usually affiliated with an institution, spirituality is related to an inner set of beliefs that guide you in life.”

Spiritually produces a sense of hope and meaning and can provide a social network.

According to Victor Chan, a friend of the Dalai Lama and founding director of the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education in Vancouver

”…spirituality (in children) is simply a way in which they’re more grounded internally and less dependent on external factors for their well-being.”

The children in the study were asked questions such as:

“How often do you pray or meditate privately outside of church or other places of worship?” and to rate the importance of statements such as I feel a higher power’s presence and “developing meaning in my life.”

Also, the children’s parents and teachers were asked to describe each child’s level of happiness.

(Read usatoday.com, canada.com, image courtesy of jameshew)

We already knew being witty and funny can take us places but when was the last time it happened?

The gleaming faces of British students from the Barnwell School in Stevenage just won them in a competition. The prize? Appearance in a major motion picture! Isn’t it great?

The school’s head teacher, Richard Westergreen-Thorne was very happy they won. They are now considered the happiest school in all of U.K. He said:

“I believe passionately that the key for success at school is that children feel safe and happy. For us to win this recognition reflects the hard work and commitment of very many students and staff.”

Educationalists Alistair Smith is behind the competition on which he will use the movie’s message of the importance of happiness in effective schooling to promote to other schools his happy philosophy.

Come to think of it, teaching happiness to students wouldn’t hurt, right?

Show your happy face! Who knows, your happy teeth may bring you to stardom!

(Via thecomet, image courtesy of herts24.co.uk)

According to the research from the University of Edinburgh and the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, genes in our body play a role in our personality and happiness. When they studied 937 pairs of twins, they found out “identical twins have a very similar personality and well-being…”

Although it is amazing how our genes carry other details aside from the blueprint of our physical appearance, researchers found out that genes are not all the reason as half of our happiness is related to external factors such as work, health and relationships.

Now I’m wondering about Ben Stiller’s children…

(Read ABC)