Helping Your Kids Find Happiness - by Ritta Rayan

Original writing by Philip Chang, Centre for Fathering

Whenever I ask parents what they would like for their children, invariably their answers revolve around the issue of happiness. "What I want is for my kid to be happy, is that so difficult?" said a father of a 14 year old son. This is the reason why parents work so hard and spend long hours in the office. This is why they camp over night in front of a school gate to enrol them in the best schools, and send them to ballet classes, music and other enrichment programmes. They do all these things and more so that their kids would be happy.

Happiness however is not found in external things. True happiness is not just in the good times but also in the difficult times. When we learn that tears are good to help us to be in touch with our humanity, then we have achieved the state of happiness. We can never give our children, or anyone for that matter, happiness without spending time to cultivate three essential life skills which are

1. ATTENTION SPAN - to be able to maintain focus on things that are not particularly interesting to the child;
2. DEFERRED GRATIFICATION – to grasp that rewards for actions are not always immediate and sometimes people have to "knuckle down" to dreary, repetitive tasks because the "pay off" only comes later; and finally
3. EMPATHY – to balance the needs and interests of others against their own.

Let me share some thoughts on the first skill of attention span.
Why is attention span important? Because TV and electronic games have shortened our children’s attention span to flickering seconds. This in turn has led children to cry for attention because they are easily bored. Indeed boredom is a huge issue in the home. I see parents scrambling to keep a fully booked calendar so that their kids are constantly engaged. One parent proudly said "Jeremy’s schedule is full. He has no time for TV."

Ironically the problem is not the TV. It is boredom brought on by short attention span which means it is a lifestyle problem. Today’s electronic influence is multifaceted. Along with the ubiquitous TV monitors, children are trained to shorten their attention span by the computer internet and the mobile phone. Phone SMSing itself is terribly efficient in this regard because of its instant messaging nature.

So the next time you plonked your baby in front of the TV to keep him occupied while you do your own thing; just stop and ask yourself, "Am I helping him expand his attention span?
When your child comes to you on a lazy Sunday afternoon and said "Hey dad, I am bored". Take heart, he is actually inviting you to teach him how to improve his attention span – a very vital life skill to survive in our world.