Today, parents worry a lot about their children’s happiness. In some ways, this is nothing new – all parents want their children to be happy. But the rise in mental health problems among teenagers – anxiety, depression and mental disorders – has brought the question of what makes children happy particularly to the forefront.
Much has been said and written about what makes adults happy. However, relatively little scientific attention has been paid to children’s happiness. A recent literature review by Fan Yang of the University of Chicago summarizes what we know. And more importantly, Yang addresses a central question: Are children only motivated by Feeling good, or also through do Good?
This distinction has important implications for how parents think about raising their children. After all, everyone knows that children like things that feel good, like the taste of a lollipop or watching cartoons. But do children consider correct behavior to be a component of happiness? Do they care about what Aristotle called “good behavior”? EudaimoniaLive well by being good?
In her review, Yang divides the literature on children’s happiness into older and more recent research. The older research, she notes, consistently (and not surprisingly) finds a significant link between “material desires and simple pleasures” and children’s happiness. For example, children as young as two can predict happiness “on the basis of obtaining desired objects”; children under seven “doubted that people could act against their own desires.” As late as age 12, children still associate happiness with participating in pleasurable activities – as opposed to building social relationships, an association that emerges with adolescence.
According to Yang, recent research does not refute this picture, but it does differentiate it. In particular, it shows that children associate happiness with good and goodness – they see a connection between moral behavior and fulfillment. For example, children aged 4 to 9 in one study thought that “mean” people were less happy, even when mean and nice people had the same level of material fulfillment. In a longitudinal study of Chinese 9- and 10-year-olds, peers’ impressions of a respondent’s sociability predicted their happiness, “beyond the children’s self-reported level of wish fulfillment.”
The conclusion, says Yang, is that children have a multidimensional concept of happiness. They value feeling good, but they also value do or be good. As Yang puts it, “Happiness for children is about achieving personal benefits… as long as the actions involved are not morally reprehensible.”
On the one hand, this claim seems completely obvious. As with adults, children’s happiness is influenced not only by sensory pleasures but also by their personal behavior.
At the same time, however, it has an impact on the way parents treat their children. There is a temptation to view moral education as a necessary but unpleasant duty. In this model, children are pleasure-seeking creatures who must be pulled, with all our strength and shouting, toward the right choices and away from the things they really want.
Of course, any parent who has ever raised a child knows that teaching children moral behavior can be a chore. No toddler wants to share, for example. But the implication of Yang’s summary is that moral behavior can bring its own kind of pleasant rewards – it can make children happier than simply letting them follow their desires. In other words, raising children morally is a way for parents to help them thrive. It can be hard – but if the research is right, it will be very rewarding in the end.
