Three Ways to Help Children Cultivate Happiness

An acclaimed radio professional, Mike Ricordati has been the director of content and imaging with Columbus, Ohio’s WBNS since 2003. Apart from overseeing all programming on WBNS FM, WBNS AM, and The Fan Radio Network, he also hosts The Common Man and T-Bone, a daily sports talk show. Outside his professional engagements, Mike Ricordati is an ardent advocate for mental health awareness and has been a spokesperson for various related initiatives, including the On Our Sleeves campaign of Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

On Our Sleeves is a national movement that aims to normalize children’s mental health issues across the US. To fulfill its mission, it offers numerous free educational resources such as articles and how-to guides. One example is a guide on how to help kids stay positive.

Among the key factors for staying positive is happiness. Following are three ways to help children cultivate it:

Foster Strong Social Connections
Work with your children to build strong and meaningful social connections. Having such connections contributes to cultivating positive emotions related to friendship. Friendships might not always be easy, but sharing various experiences helps to develop a sense of belonging and purpose.

Perform Random Acts of Kindness
Being kind to others is a powerful mood booster. Engage your children in random acts of kindness by doing something for another family member, friend, neighbor, or anyone else of their choice.

Appreciate the Good
Sometimes, cultivating happiness comes from taking a moment to think about the good in our lives. It’s much easier to concentrate on what is going wrong, so help your children notice and appreciate the good things in their lives. These could be having a good and caring family and friends, being healthy, or even small things like completing a difficult task at school or finding a new favorite song. The more you help your children do this, the more they will learn to identify the good in their lives by themselves.