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Kids laughing and playing outside
relationships

3 Ways to Lasting Happiness for Kids

We all love fleeting happiness. It feels fantastic in the moment. The challenge we faced with it is the moment leaves quickly, and unhappiness shows up at the door. The following are ways to strengthen your children’s growing sense of lasting happiness, so they don’t have to go from joy to pain, and back again continuously. Children can learn how to become happier, understand their emotions, and point in a direction that continually feeds their joy. Helping Others Have you ever noticed the more you place the focus on helping others, the more there is this “magic” that occurs, and you end up feeling happier. The thinking goes from “me, me, me” to “we, we, we” and you forget all the things that you were bothered by. The same is true for children. Guiding children to help others, share their toys, hold the door open, and volunteer as they get older, and participate in a “bigger” way in life are all ways to help them grow a happy heart. Recently, I had a client who volunteered to help his elderly neighbor clean up their yard, and the same family invited some foster youth over for a 4th of July barbeque. Whether it’s a smile, a nice word, or some other helping you or your children can do it is a recipe for happier life experiences. Using Challenges as Opportunities You can guide children to see situations as challenges to learn from, and opportunities to move in a better feeling direction. Think of challenges as stepping-stones to something better. For example, in my book: The Happiness Workbook for Kids, I have an activity where children put a problem inside a box (square) and they put on each of the four sides something they can learn from it. So, say, they wrote: My BFF is moving away. They can learn to: 1) Keep in touch on Facetime, and play videos games together in different places, 2) Make new friends, 3) Visit each other, and 4) Wish her good luck (even though it’s hard) in her new school. Learning from challenges, and pointing toward a better feeling situation makes children happier – every single time. Calming the Mind The number one thing I recommend to parents, especially new parents, is to help their children calm. Children who learn to calm themselves can often stop before making not-so smart choices. Some calming strategies to learn alongside your children include: Breathing techniques (for example, flower breath, hand on heart, hot soup all in The Happiness Workbook for Kids), Mindfulness (for example, can you spot all the red on our walk), Creative outlets, Exercise, and more. The aim is for your children to slow down, calm, and make those better choices even with tricky emotions! (Tip: Have your child teach you the activities, and they’ll be the feelings boss!) Becoming happier is a skill for children to learn – just like reading, counting, and making their own peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The aim is to have fun with it. Fill up your happiness bucket as a family and be creative. Do happiness experiments like gardening, going to the zoo, making a new recipe, watching a funny movie, or something deeper – helping others, learning to meditate or take a mindfulness walk. The door to lasting happiness is open for children, and they can learn to create real happiness sooner rather than later! Maureen Healy is a child therapist, mindfulness author, and leader in the field of children’s emotional health and happiness education. She writes for Psychology Today, and her books include: The Happiness Workbook for Kids (PESI), The Emotionally Healthy Child (preface from Dalai Lama) and Growing Happy Kids (HCI Books). Learn more about working with her, or reading her books: growinghappykids.com
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Smiling young woman sitting on sofa with happy older retired 70s father, enjoying pleasant conversation with cup of coffee tea together in living room, mature parents and grown children communication.
relationships

What’s the Best Way to Help Your Aging Parents?

It's Time to Be Their Advocate, Not Their Parent. Here’s How. Too often, as parents age adult children feel the best way to help and support them is to reverse roles and become their ... parents. But as a professional care manager with 40 years of experience helping adults in their Fragile Years and their families, I cringe when I hear adult children talk about how they feel like they’ve reversed roles with their parents who are now dependent on them. That attitude is a trap that can result in bitterness and resentment on both sides. Parents don’t like their children telling them what to do—no matter how fragile they might be. There is a much healthier way to engage with the new family dynamic, and that is to view this as an opportunity to become your parent’s strongest advocate and supporter—a source of kindness, compassion, and understanding.  I talk about this in my book, The Fragile Years. You aren’t reversing roles. You are entering a new stage of your relationship. This isn’t a burden; it’s an opportunity to make your loved one’s final years as comfortable, peaceful, and secure as possible.  You’re also preventing the stressful complications that arise when crises occur amid a lack of preparation. Consider this also as your time to demonstrate to your own family, especially your children and grandchildren, how you would hope to be treated in the later stages of your own life. This as an opportunity to become your parent’s strongest advocate and supporter—a source of kindness, compassion, and understanding. Here are 7 steps I have found make all the difference: Begin preparing yourself and your parents for the Fragile Years as they enter their seventies. That means laying the groundwork for conversations by introducing, little by little, topics such as priorities and values for happiness and well-being, and whether your parents have a living will or power of attorney.  Over time, you can move toward setting tools up where they are not already in place and ensuring that choices align with your parents preferences and values. Discuss their preferences for the late stages of life and end-of-life while they are still mentally fit. These conversations can be uncomfortable conversations, but the alternative is to leave the door open for stressful crises and decisions that might be made in a context of doubt and disagreement. Consider these conversations an act of love.  You will be very glad to have prepared for the fragile years ahead and all the challenges they bring. Gather critical information on their financial, medical and legal affairs. Find out where your parents keep important documents and secure them all in a place or places where you can get to them. These include property titles and deeds, car titles, online passwords and pin numbers, loan papers, investment information, and monthly bills for household expenses and insurance. Make sure, too, to have contact information for your parent’s lawyers—especially those who have their wills on file—and their primary doctor. You’ll also want to have access to any stocks, mutual funds, IRAs, or other financial instruments. Some will ask for documentation from your parent’s doctors saying that the individual no longer has the mental capacity to handle their own affairs -- so preparing in advance is crucial. Get to know the senior care offerings in your communities before there’s a need. Find out if your communities have assisted living, nursing homes or rehab facilities, and learn about the depth of their services. Also ask if they have long-term beds available - right now there is a chronic shortage of beds in nursing homes. Cultivating contacts at each local facility helps ensure that they'll notify you when beds may be available. Keep it personal! If your parents are resistant to any help, search for a trusted advisor. Care managers are trained to provide help in these types of scenarios and to advocate for your parent’s care and safety, whether it’s provided by a hospital, a nursing home or an at-home caregiver. It is money well spent. Above all: make the most of the time you have remaining with your loved one. This is your opportunity to create even more meaningful memories and to let them know once again that they are loved and will be remembered. Amy Cameron O’Rourke is a nationally-known pioneer and advocate for senior care in the U.S. She has been a professional care manager for more than 40 years, with 20 of those years at the helm of The Cameron Group (now Arosa), which she founded, as well as O’Rourke & Associates in Orlando, Florida. Amy is also the author of The Fragile Years.
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Junior football team stacking hands before a match
relationships

7 Tips for Creating Confidence in Kids

Self improvement doesn't necessarily mean we'll always win, but it does give us the opportunity to thrive. The most consistent finding in peak performance literature is the direct, positive relationship between confidence and success. Research doesn’t say success causes confidence, but it clearly tells us that outstanding performers are confident. Confidence is all about believing in ourselves. It’s having realistic faith that we can make anything happen, fulfill our dream, and reach our goal. Society teaches us we need to have successful results to become confident and it’s natural to pass that belief on to our kids and youth sport team members. But what if I said confidence can be created through an intentional process and doesn’t have to be solely based on winning the game, match, or tournament? Brain science tells us that confidence is a choice. Helping kids choose to create their confidence doesn’t guarantee they’ll always play great, but it does give them the best opportunity to perform closer to their potential (and have more fun). Apply the following seven tips for creating confidence in kids and youth sport team members: Reinforce and reward effort. Sometimes it’s easier to reinforce effort during practice than during competition when we naturally tend to focus more on outcomes, like making a goal in soccer. By creating a plan to emphasize effort during competition and reward effort after competition, you will increase levels of motivation and fun. HOW? Pre-determine regular intervals – like the end of a quarter or half-time – to check in with kids and ask them to rate their effort. Develop a system to reward effort, like a hustle award, and not just outcomes, such as stickers for making touchdowns. On the car ride home, ask younger kids if they tried their hardest and ask older kids to rate their effort on a scale of 1-10. Focus on self-improvement. One of the top three reasons kids play sports is to improve. To help kids improve, we need to create a mastery-oriented environment where they feel successful when they learn something new or experience skills improvement. A mastery-oriented environment is about “me vs. myself” rather than “me compared to others.” When kids improve skills, they also build their confidence. We can help kids accomplish both by creating optimal levels of challenge – or opportunities requiring them to stretch one level beyond their current skill or aptitude. We can model what we do after the video game industry, which gradually increases levels of challenge to keep kids engaged and builds skills and confidence in the process. HOW? Track and celebrate progression by charting and sharing important statistics in your sport. Ask kids to set up a practice activity, or game, to create their own level-up challenge. Record videos of kids swinging, throwing, shooting, etc. to show them visible skill-improvement over time. Celebrate the good and great. Emotions are like a highlighter on the brain. We best recall experiences attached to strong emotions, whether positive or negative. The more we help kids store positive memories by celebrating the good and great, the more they’ll be able to recall those positive memories the next time they need them. Keep in mind that celebrating may be visible “on the outside” in the form of a high-five or fist-bump, but it also happens “on the inside” through positive self-talk and imagery. HOW? Ask kids how they plan to celebrate the good and great. Have them show you how they plan to visibly celebrate and, for older kids, help them determine what they plan to imagine or say to themselves to help store positive memories. At the start of each practice, have team members show you how they’ll celebrate the good and great. During practice, or throughout the day, catch kids doing something right. Model and develop a growth mindset. Dr. Carol Dweck coined the phrase and wrote a book about the growth mindset, which is seen in kids who believe new skills can be developed through practice, embrace challenges as opportunities to learn, and think effort is essential. On the contrary, kids with a fixed mindset think skills are something you’re born with, avoid challenges out of fear of failure, and believe effort is something you do when you’re not good enough. Her research shows young people with a growth mindset continually outperform young people who have a fixed mindset. HOW? Be intentional about modeling the use of the phrases “YET” and “not YET.” Teach kids to use these phrases as they’re developing skills. For example: “I’m on the right track, but I’m not there YET.” “I may not be good at biking YET. But I will keep improving with practice.” Practice confident body posture. Research tells us our physiology can affect our psychology. That is, how we sit and stand, as well as our facial expressions, can trigger chemicals in our body which affect how we think and feel. For example: sitting up straight in a chair gives us more confidence in our thoughts; two minutes of power poses a day can boost feelings of confidence; and choosing to smile can help us feel happier. HOW? Have your child, or team members, create their own “power pose” – a physical position they stand in when they feel confident. Challenge them to use their power pose throughout practice or their school day. Lead an activity where kids experiment with different facial expressions. Ask them to notice how they feel. Encourage them to incorporate a facial expression into their power pose. Help team members develop and practice a confident walk. Ask them to think about a performer in their sport or activity who is confident – and then not confident – and walk around the room like they are that person. Give specific, skill-based feedback. Coaches tend to give a different type and frequency of feedback to players they perceive to have different levels of ability. When we have expectations that a young person is good or has the potential to be a high performer, we tend to give improvement focused feedback more often. On the flip side, when we believe a young person is not very good or doesn’t have potential, we give less feedback and it’s usually “good job” feedback that doesn’t help them improve. How we give feedback can contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy where good performers get better, and poor performers don’t. HOW? Be intentional about giving specific, skill-based feedback in similar doses to each of your kids, or team members. Increase your awareness of how you give feedback by asking your spouse/significant other/coaching colleagues what they notice. Also, if you’re a coach, videotape yourself coaching in practice. At the end of a class or practice, take five minutes to get feedback from students, or team members. Ask what they learned today and what feedback you gave them that will help them improve. Listen to what they say and provide specific, skill-based feedback, if needed. Based on the day’s objectives, create a coaching/teaching cue card to carry in your pocket. Look at the card as a reminder to provide specific, skill-based feedback to each kid, or team member, regardless of their current skill level. Re-frame mistakes, or losing, as learning. There are countless stories about great performers who have failed, messed up, or lost hundreds or thousands of times. They’ve been coached, or learned on their own, that failures and setbacks are essential for growth and development. The more we can support kids as they make mistakes and help them reframe losing as learning versus losing as failing, the more they’ll persist and improve. Helping kids separate who they are from how they perform can increase their motivation and retention. HOW? Share examples of well-known athletes, artists, or musicians who “failed” before they become highly successful. For example, Hall of Famer, Michael Jordan, was cut from his high school basketball team; Thomas Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb; and Oprah Winfrey was once demoted from co-anchor to a writing and reporting position. Challenge kids to think about other sports or areas of life they’re currently good or great at. Ask them to share how good they were when they first started and what they’ve done to improve. Make the connection between effort, practice, and skill development. After every performance, tell your kids, or team members, how much you enjoyed watching them play, regardless of the outcome. Getting confidence from winning games, or hearing positive statements from others, is great when it happens. However, it’s almost always outside of our circle of control. By intentionally and consistently applying these seven tips for creating confidence, you can help your kids and youth sport team members CREATE CONFIDENCE today rather than WAIT TO GET CONFIDENCE that may never arrive. Beth Brown, Ph.D., is a life-long educator on a mission to inspire families and kids to have fun, become more active and learn life lessons through sports in her children’s book series Adventures with Divot & Swish. After picking up a basketball at age 2 and swinging her first golf club at age 8, Beth was hooked on sports. Her youth sport participation paved the way for her collegiate success as a member of the University of Oklahoma basketball and conference champion women’s golf teams. 
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Blended family eating together for the holidays
relationships

8 Practices Blended Families Can Do for a Happier Holiday Season

Use these mindful ideas to keep the peace and increase the merriment. Everywhere we go, starting in early November, Santa Claus confronts us, and Christmas tunes envelop us. Although meant to inspire cheer and excitement, for many people these and other cues evoke dread. Our culture’s expectation that we’re all joyful during the holiday season can be especially hard for blended families. Whether they are formed after a death or divorce, blended families create a widening web of extended family relationships to be considered at celebration times, magnifying the complexities they experience all year round. This situation affects a lot of us. According to the Pew Research Center, in 40% of U.S. families, at least one partner has a child from a previous relationship, far different from the mid-1970s when my widowed dad married my stepmother. At that time, most children lived with two parents who were in their first marriage, and my only prior exposure to a blended family was the TV series “The Brady Bunch,” which ran from 1969-74. Widower Mike, the father of three boys, married the mother of three girls, Carol. Then, as the theme song says, the group “somehow formed a family”– albeit with few complications. No grandparents from the parents’ previous marriages ever appeared. No custody arrangements impacted their family schedule. No pictures of the boys’ deceased mother were displayed, and she was never mentioned. After my dad’s remarriage, we followed a similar pattern, leaving the past behind to create a new future, resulting in diminished contact with my maternal relatives. My memoir, The Art of Reassembly, recounts how, much later, I understood the detriments of this approach. It’s healthier, I learned, to acknowledge the realities of being a blended family, even if they’re challenging. Candor is especially important at the holidays when ordinary stresses may be amplified. Here are some ideas for embracing complexity to enjoy the holiday season as a blended family. Soften Your Expectations Releasing expectations of how the celebrations should go will foster the most helpful mindset. Expectations are insidious. They creep in under the radar of our awareness, forming sharp edges around our emotions. Then they poke others when they are not met. In advance of the holiday season and continuing as it unfolds, check in with yourself about expectations you are holding and try to let them go. Initiate Communication Ask everyone to weigh in on how to celebrate. Gaining insight into what the others in your blended family desire from the holiday season might help with releasing expectations. Maybe your children or stepchildren don’t really care as much about the things you thought were sacrosanct. Maybe they will have suggestions of how to balance time with all their different families that you hadn’t considered. Put the Kids First Inviting input about holiday celebrations from all the children involved in your blended family centers them in a way that matters, but you must follow it up by prioritizing their preferences, even (or especially) if they conflict with yours. This doesn’t mean indulge their every whim. Just let them know you’re listening. Children usually have little or no say in big decisions like divorce and remarriage that majorly impact them. Allowing them choice when you can will build trust. Include Yourself Too Putting the kids first also doesn’t mean ignoring adult needs altogether. The holiday season is plenty long, so make time in the calendar for something that sparks joy or brings you peace or connects you to your own history and traditions. As you nurture yourself, you’re also providing a healthy model for your children and stepchildren to witness. Make Space for Emotions Loss and change are inherent to any blended family, whether from a death or the end of a marriage. As with any loss, feelings of grief are likely to recur around holiday times, which serve as annual reminders of how things used to be. Accept that painful emotions occur. They may appear as angry outbursts or cold silence or sudden weepiness over something seemingly unrelated. Noticing and naming feelings allows them to flow through rather than escalate.  Schedule Downtime Emotions are more likely to crescendo when people are run ragged. Allow space in the calendar for downtime and rest. Create New Memories While spending time with all branches of the blended family is important, so is creating new memories as a unit. They can be very simple, such as serving a special food or a gathering for a movie night or taking a walk together. New traditions may also emerge organically over time. Keep Communicating After the holidays have passed, continue the communication. Ask everyone what they enjoyed, what they thought worked well, what was hard, and invite their input about future celebrations. Bring up the conversation at different times of year. It may be easier to discuss new ideas when the holidays are not immediately proximate. Peg Conwaywrites and practices Healing Touch energy therapy in Cincinnati, OH, where she also volunteers at a children’s grief center. Her essays about early mother loss and long-term grieving have appeared at The Manifest-Station, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and The Mighty. The Art of Reassembly: A Memoir of Early Mother Loss and Aftergriefis her first book.
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Happy Kids
relationships

17 Things Our Kids Teach Us About Happiness

Parenting isn’t easy. We wonder if we are doing a good enough job while we juggle multiple responsibilities and watch our kids grow up too fast. Sometimes we are so caught up in teaching our children that we forget to pause and ask ourselves what we can learn from them. What if children hold the secret to a meaningful and fulfilling adulthood? Here are 17 things you can learn from kids: Stay present. When a child wakes up, they are not stressing about what’s on their to-do list or how to get it all done. Kids just naturally live in the moment. Adults can choose to as well. Be spontaneous. While we may not want to emulate our kids when they go from temper tantrum to happy in a matter of seconds, we can follow their lead when it comes to unplanned fun. Forget the workweek drudgery and the fun-is-for-the-weekend mindset and seek more moments of joy within each day. Find your voice. Our kids are always vying for our attention. They want to be seen and heard. Adults need to know they matter, too. Surround yourself with people who value you and what you have to say. Don’t worry about what other people think. Watch a 4-year-old select an outfit, and you quickly realize they don’t care about what other people think. Blue sparkle pants can go with a black and white polka dot shirt and orange rain boots. Make decisions based on what you like and not what the critics might say. Dance. Don’t wait for a dance club or ballroom lessons, let the music play and dance in your kitchen or down the street. Kids delight in movement, anywhere, any time. Be open to some playful dancing just because. Start with a blank slate. Even if little ones go to bed pouting, they often wake up happy without holding on to what happened the day before. A new day is a chance to start again. Be silly and laugh for no special reason. It’s easy to make kids laugh. Adults? Not so much. Booked schedules and multiple responsibilities can make adults too serious. Let yourself be silly for no special reason. Laugh with your co-workers. Crack a joke. Watch a comedy and laugh out loud. Be playful with your spouse. Laughing is good for your health. Go outdoors. Remember when you were little and you’d come inside smelling like fresh air? You probably had dirt on you, a fresh scratch or two and you were exhilarated from a day of running around outside nonstop. Seek out nature more often to recharge and awaken your spirit. Love unconditionally. Even when we don’t have our best day as a parent, our children love us anyway. Instead of being so tough on yourself, choose to love yourself and others without conditions. It feels so good when your child says, “I love you.” Offer that unconditional love to others around you, too. Do what you love. Kids are inherently drawn to what they love doing. They will ask mom or dad 100 times in a row if they can do that activity. Too often adults let what they love doing slip to the bottom of their list—buried under responsibilities and daily habits. Get back to doing what you love—it’s often the path to your purpose. Play. Children often view every environment as an opportunity to play. What if you began filtering your world (and days) looking for opportunities to have some fun? Make messes. Enjoy the freedom in making a mess. (Note to neat freaks: You can clean it up!) You don’t have to destroy your kitchen with a food fight. Channel your inner child by riding your bike through a puddle, running through the sprinkler, playing in mud with your kids or painting without worry that colors will drip on your clothes. Get excited. How often do you get crazy psyched for something? Anticipation and excitement are skills kids have mastered. (Picture wide eyes, big smiles, jumping up and down and shrieking.) When is the last time you felt that excited? Put some things on your calendar that make you giddy with childlike excitement. Notice the joy all around you. Kids find joy in the smallest of pleasures—from a firetruck that passes by to a butterfly landing near them. Children delight in cloud shapes, a rabbit that hops into the yard and rainbow sprinkles on ice cream. Start noticing and appreciating the simple little joys that surround you every day. Accept others exactly as they are. Children are drawn to adults who show an interest in them. You don’t have to look or be a certain way to be loved and accepted by kids. Take a tip from the little ones: Don’t judge others. Take an open-minded and kind-hearted interest in other people. Be curious about the world. Kids have a natural wonder and curiosity about the world. Be a sponge and love to learn like your kids do. See every new person you meet as someone you could learn something from. Look for new experiences and opportunities to absorb knowledge. Be authentic. Some adults spend their lives learning to be who they are. Children just know who they are unapologetically. Find your way back to who you know yourself to be.
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Father's Day
relationships

The Best Father’s Day Gift

Every holiday—just like every day—is an opportunity to nurture relationships. The way you experience others in the present is largely guided by information your mind processes from your past, present and even your future, all of which you associate with and bring to bear upon present moments. This processing has profound effects. It shapes what you think, feel and do. And this largely determines the outcome of events. Such mental activity occurs mostly under your radar and at very high speed, in just milliseconds. Acting mostly on automatic pilot, this processing is evolution’s answer to the overwhelming amount of information streaming at us all day long. By the time you get an idea of how you will act in a given situation, you are likely already in motion, for better or worse. Most of us just go through the day and do what we do, not giving it much thought. And that’s usually fine with us, especially if things are going well. But as soon as plans and behaviors start going awry, we get antsy. All experiences are not equal. Some of the usual places your mind can go are: To old memories of similar moments and your responses to those; to old emotional files that merge with the details of your present situation and also to related future expectations. One of the best gifts you can give dad on Father’s Day is to preload your mind with patterns that generate more closeness, joy and peace. Behavioral and emotional patterns will emerge. The more each behavior has been repeated in your past, the more predictably and powerfully a similar situation will ignite it in the present. This is why you hear people say things like, “I always have a slow, long breakfast on holidays,” or say, “We always wind up quarreling on the holidays, then making up and then trying to make what’s the best of the remainder of the day.” The truth is, the mind will repeat a pattern over and over until it gets the message that you want to do things differently. It’s not much different than when you choose to sit in a certain spot in your favorite restaurant or say the same thing, word for word, when someone asks, “How are you?” But sometimes you want more control and a better, more meaningful pattern. One of the best gifts you can give dad on Father’s Day is to preload your mind with patterns that generate more closeness, joy and peace. A nice way to do this is to clean out old dysfunctional reactions and replace them with warmer, kinder ones. Use these guidelines to build more positive moments into Father’s Day—and every day. Energy Bites for Father’s Day: DON’T Use devices too much. Try to have a “mostly” device-free day and go for more organic family and personal time. Your mind and body and relationships will be glad you did. Let unwanted memories invade your day. You can start to identify some of the usual invaders the night before. Then tell yourself that when they arise the next day you’ll be ready for them and not allow them entry. Plan a positive response instead so it will kick in when you need it. DO Take a small day trip to a place where you and Dad have had special moments in the past. Remember good times. Tell stories or look at photo albums together. Say something loving. Take time to savor the positive details of the day. Listen often without having to respond. Find something—a conversation or common sports interest—to build on later. Create pockets of peace and quiet and soak it all in.
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national sibling day
relationships

Sisterhood Is Powerful

My sister Sara and I shared a wall between our bedrooms growing up. We had a secret knock we’d use to say good night to each other: I’d knock first and my sister would knock back. I’m younger than my sister by three years, and her little knock always made me feel safe. If there was a thunderstorm, I’d get scared and drag a blanket down the hall to her room. “Can I sleep in your room?” I’d whisper. “Yes, but on the floor,” she’d whisper back. Adults in midlife now, we laugh about that one. (She couldn’t give me a tiny sliver of her bed?) My sister and I are so different. We live about 1,000 miles apart and our personalities are that far apart, too. I talk too much; she’s shy. No one would know we are sisters; we are adopted and don’t look alike. While we don’t share genetics or personality type, we do share something powerful—sisterhood. Now science is even backing up this premise. A 2015 study from De Montfort University in the U.K. showed that “the presence of a female sibling may be a protective factor…improving family relationships and increasing self-efficacy, optimism and perceived social support.” This could not have been more true in my case. Sisterhood is a fierce bond. I could be my sister’s publicist in life. I love her and I’ve always looked up to her. She’s smart (high school valedictorian, educated at Harvard) but she would never tell you because she’s also humble. I feel fiercely loyal to my sister because we shared a tumultuous childhood that revolved around an alcoholic parent. We both had to enter adulthood with burdens to overcome, and that shared experience resulted in a stronger bond. My sister told me once, “You have never let me down.” And I responded, “You are my sister.” By which I meant, no matter what happens in our lives, I know she understands my past because it was hers, too. I don’t have to fill in the blanks for her or explain who I am, she just knows. Our connection is strong and comforting. Sisters have shared experience. When Sara and I were kids, I would take clothes out of her purple-beaded closet without asking. As sisters do, she’d yell at me for stretching out her clothes or ruining them. She’d read books in her bedroom and I’d slip notes under the crack in her door to make her laugh again and forgive me. We shared the levity of childhood—flashlight tag, long bike rides to the lake and road trips. And we also shared in the heaviness of adulthood—when we gathered around my mom’s bed on her last day of life. During every part of life, we have leaned on each other. Sisters are your tribe. At 26, I found my birth family and learned I had married birth parents and a birth sister. Gulp. When I finally met my birth sister, Jen, in the flesh, it was like looking in a mirror. Two redheads, two talkers. Two people who love to laugh and be the life of the party. Our connection was instant and easy. We didn’t have to share a past—we immediately got one another. Sisters are like that. A sister’s presence is powerful. When I am around either of my sisters, I feel happier. We all live in different states but we share an invisible connection beyond geography. Life is in session when we’re together. We relate. Sisters make you feel like you aren’t experiencing the highs and lows of life alone. With a sister, you always feel like you have a home base where you can draw strength, where someone is always in your corner. Sisters get personal. Even though my sister Sara is a quiet person, we still share everything and hash things out together. Swapping stories and venting gives us both a healthy outlet to process emotions and get feedback. This kind of expression also happens to foster well-being. Sisters look out for one another. My daughters are twin 5-year-olds. By watching their sisterhood play out before me, I notice how often they look out for each other, even at this young age. Sure, they tell on each other, but the sisterly love, generosity and consideration for one another seems innate. In separate preschool classes, they check in on each other on the playground. They shriek and chase each other around the house and prevent each other from falling asleep at night with their antics. Each will come up to me and say, “Mom, sister needs you.” I’m so happy they have each other. Sisterhood is powerful indeed.
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Creative kid
relationships

Know Your Kids’ Strengths

Lea Waters, Ph.D., the Gerry Higgins Chair in Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and the president of the International Positive Psychology Association, has witnessed the powerful effects of strengths on students through her award-winning work with schools over the past decade. Lea knew that using strengths at home could be even more powerful and began applying them with her kids to help foster optimism and resilience. Her book is The Strength Switch: How the New Science of Strength-Based Parenting Can Help Your Child and Your Teen to Flourish. LIVE HAPPY: What is strength-based parenting? LEA WATERS: Strength-based parenting (SBP) is an approach that focuses first on your child’s strengths—their talents, positive qualities, what your child does well—before attending to their faults and shortcomings. Rather than putting your attention on fixing what’s wrong with your kids, it’s about switching your focus to amplify what’s right. LH: How did you come up with the strength switch and how does it work? LW: Once I trained myself what to look for, I could see strengths easily and everywhere. This was when life was calm and happy and my brain could focus. However, when I was stressed and tired or when my kids were acting out, I found it hard to see their strengths. I needed a real-time mental tool to short-circuit the negativity. I came up with the strength switch. I literally picture a switch and watch it flick inside my head to turn the spotlight off the negative and on the positive. It reminds me that to be a successful strength-based parent, I need to look at what my kids have done right before I look at what they’ve done wrong. LH:What results have you found? LW: My parenting is more intentional, coherent and consistent. My children understand they have strengths that can be used to help them navigate tough times and make the most of the good times. They can also see the strengths in others, enabling them to form strong relationships and help others shine. My research shows that when teenagers have strength-focused parents, they report better psychological outcomes, including greater life satisfaction, increased positive emotions such as joy and hope, enhanced understanding of their own strengths and decreased stress. Strengths help teens meet homework deadlines, deal with friendship issues and cope better with stress. Listen to our podcast with Lea Waters: Read more about strengths: Put Your Strengths to Work! Read more about parenting: What Great Parents Do Differently Suzann Pileggi Pawelsiholds a master's in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and is a contributing editor toLiveHappy. Her first book,Happy Together: Using the Science of Positive Psychology to Build Love That Lasts,written with her husband, James Pawelski, Ph.D., comes out in January 2018.
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9 Tips for Low-Stress Holiday Entertaining

The holidays are a festive time of year. Roaring fires and flickering candles, scents of pine needles and mulled wine, and sounds of softly playing music accent family gatherings. The holidays, however, are also a harbinger of stress. Many of us stretch ourselves to the limit trying to achieve a Martha Stewart-level of perfection on a budget or hosting a houseful of relatives while working late hours. Buying and wrapping gifts, decorating, cooking, hosting—the responsibilities pile up. To relieve some of the burden, try not to compare your holiday to the ones you’ve seen in the movies or on well-crafted Facebook posts or obsession-fueled Pinterest boards. Head into the season expecting “flawed and fabulous” and you will enjoy it all the more. Despite your best efforts to create holiday magic, something decidedly not-so-magical will happen. You’ll forget the tinsel. Your parents will be stranded in Chicago. The dog will get to dessert before the guests. You can almost bet on it. Here are nine ways to keep your chin up and stress down this holiday season. 1. Start the season charged Holidays are inherently stressful because you add multiple tasks to your already busy schedule. Increase your self-care activities leading up to the holidays. Do the things that recharge you the most, whether it’s lunch with a friend, a walk in the woods, relaxing with a good book or writing in a journal. Spend some time replenishing your mind and body: To feel your best when the holidays arrive, make sure you sleep seven hours nightly, exercise regularly and eat nutritiously. If you already have a healthy routine, don’t start skipping it for the holiday season. Read more: Are You Living Fully Charged? 2. Give up perfection Embrace imperfection. We often get disappointed when our (often idealistic) expectations clash with reality. Tell yourself that something will go wrong and it’s okay. Now if the turkey is a bit dry or if your uncle talks politics at the dinner table, you can just roll with it instead of letting it ruin your holiday. Read more: 4 Ways to Make This Holiday Season Better Than Perfect 3. Decorate early Get a jump start on your planning and reduce stress on the actual holiday by getting your home ready ahead of time. Turn decorating your home into a tradition that involves your whole family (i.e., put the kids to work). Start preparing for Thanksgiving in mid-November. For Christmas or Hanukkah, start making your house festive around December 1. You’ll be so glad you’ve checked something off your list; plus, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying holiday spirit in the house all month long! 4. Make holiday punch bowls—one for the kids and one for the adults With a quick Google or Pinterest search of “holiday punch recipe,” you can find delicious, festive-themed drink recipes—one for the adults and one for the little ones. Now you won’t have to cater to every person’s individual tastes, and it can add to the ambiance of your gathering. Consider using a small table for pitchers of ice water and glasses, too, so your guests can help themselves while you greet family at the door. The more you set up beforehand, the more you can be in the present moment and enjoy your party once it begins. 5. Get out of the kitchen Timing an elaborate dinner with multiple courses is ambitious, and it can keep you in the kitchen when everyone else is enjoying each other and the party. Make it your goal to be out of the kitchen when your guests arrive. One option is to cook nearly everything ahead of time. Another is to go potluck or semi-potluck: Consider making the main dish and having everyone bring an appetizer, side dish or dessert to share. Now your party is a collective effort instead of all on you. Exhale, that’s a lot of responsibility off your shoulders. 6. Don’t clean up right away Even if you like a tidy table or a clean kitchen, stacking dishes and loading the dishwasher can be a message to your friends and family that the party is over. Value your together time over your urge to clean up. Enjoy the conversation and take pleasure in the wonderful meal you just had before you put your kitchen and dining room back in order. Or, consider being upfront with family and guests and tell them you thought you’d serve dessert an hour after dinner. That way everyone knows they are welcome to stay. 7. Accept people as they are If someone in your family is always having drama, don’t be surprised when drama shows up this year, too. If you have a relative who says outrageous things, expect it again this year. Keep this Maya Angelou quote in mind: “Once people show you who they are, believe them, the first time.” We don’t get to choose our relatives, so if you accept your relatives for who they are, you can take away their power to ruin a moment. Accept and let go. Read more: 7 Tips to Survive the Holidays With Your Family 8. Keep the conversation going Sometimes conversations flow effortlessly and shared stories bring your family closer. Other times you might have awkward silences and people only discussing the food. Increase your chances of creating a memorable holiday by thinking of some meaningful conversations you’d like to start. Maybe it’s a family reunion you’d like to plan, or a favorite holiday memory you want to reminisce about. Take the lead by starting a rewarding conversation. You can decide to go around the table and have everyone share one great thing that they are grateful for, or to name something special that has happened in the past year. If kids are involved, table games can be fun as well. 9. Swap worry for gratitude Worry is almost always a wasted emotion. It makes you feel bad and doesn’t accomplish anything productive. If you catch yourself worrying about the holidays, swap your worry out for some gratitude by consciously listing your blessings. If you are busy being thankful for the people and good things in your life, there won’t be room for worry and stress about the details of party planning and gift giving. Read more: 3 Secrets to Happiness This Holiday Season Sandra Bienkowski is a regular contributor to Live Happy and the founder and CEO of TheMediaConcierge.net.
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Fun with your kids
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50 Fun Ways to Feel Like a Kid Again

As adults, we pay lip service to seeing the world through kids’ curious, unjaded eyes. And it’s true, that view is lovely. But even better in our opinion is that being with children also means you actually get to be a kidsometimes! Toting a tot is a great excuse to do loads of silly, fun, adventurous things we’d be too embarrassed—or wouldn’t have the opportunity—to do without one. Asking the mounted officers if you can pet their horses? Kind of weird if you’re alone. But with a kid? Totally normal! Want to ride the spinning tea cups? You’re probably too tall. But with a shorty by your side, you’re good to go. If you need a reminder of how ridiculously fun (and just ridiculous) parenting, grandparenting, aunt-ing, and uncle-ing can be, we came up with a list of 50 reasons why spending time with kids is a blast—each one of which will make you feel like a kid again in the process. 1. Riding carousels—and putting genuine thought into which pony you should choose—when you’re 40. 2. Trick or treating at Halloween, and the vicarious thrill of wondering who will open the door and what kind of candy they will give (fingers crossed for the top-shelf Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups!). 3. Sliding down the fireman pole at the playground. 4. Catching snippets of the teen shows the kids are watching in the other room and laughing more than you ever do at grown-up sitcoms. 5. BOUNCY. CASTLES. 6. Sucking the helium out of balloons and then singing “Happy Birthday” in your leprechaun voice. 7. Jumping on a trampoline until you almost pee your pants. 8. Gawking at construction sites, because you know you always wanted to see what it looked like 10 feet below the street. 9. Skipping! (Though we think skipping should be the next fitness craze…it’s quite the leg workout.) 10. Chasing after the ice cream truck on a lazy summer evening. 11. Lacing up roller skates for the first time in 20 years and realizing, once you’re out in the rink, that you’ve still got it. 12. Water gun/balloon fights. Why do we stop having these once we grow up? 13. Playing Candy Land and, after all these years, still getting excited when you land on Queen Frostine. 14. Eating the leftover cotton candy! 15. Having an excuse to see all the latest animated kids’ movies. 16. Waiting in line with all the grade-schoolers for the pool slide because your 5-year-old is too scared to go by himself, and then getting nervous when it's your turn. 17. Family sing-alongs in the car, windows down, headed home from dinner. 18. Exploring the inside of your local firehouse on a school trip—and checking out the firetrucks while you’re there. 19. Running through a sprinklerto show the children how it’s done. 20. Jumping off the high dive to prove your bravery to your nephew—and yourself. 21. Finger painting. 22. Chuckling at your ignorance of today's slang—who knew “jello” or “jelly” means “jealous”? 23. Loving to hate Elmo, SpongeBob, and Phineas and Ferb. 24. Enjoying the sidelines camaraderie of fellow sports parents at your kids’/grandkids’ games. It beats chitchatting at a grown-up cocktail party any day. 25. Winding down from preschool—and work—with coloring books, and choosing just the right crayon for Thor’s chest plate (pink, of course). 26. Buying Maroon 5 songs on iTunes “for your kids.” 27. Going to Maroon 5 concerts “for your kids.” 28. Slip’N Slides. 29. Getting your craft on for kiddie holiday parties. Snowflake garlands and personalized goody bags? Yes, please! 30. Jumping in leaf piles with your niece, and picking tiny twigs out of your hair the rest of the day. 31. Harry Potter. 32. Playing again with all the toys you loved as a child: Legos, Barbies, blocks, dolls and action figures. 33. Spending way too much money at a video arcade—on Skee-Ball, Big Buck Hunter, and free throw basketball—because it’s just as thrilling for you as it is for the kiddos to see the machines spit out those long chains of tickets. 34. Swinging at the playground, your baby on your lap, looking up at the sky. 35. Taylor Swift. 36. Stopping with your little one to pet every single dog you pass on the street. 37. Diving for pennies in the pool. 38. Bowling with the bumpers up. 39. Blissing out when your 4-year-old plays “beauty salon” on your hair. 40. Having a backyard game of catch. 41. Living-room dance parties. Children don’t notice that you have zero rhythm. 42. Blowing and popping bubbles. Save some for the kids! 43. Sledding wildly down a huge hill, scared witless, but doing it again (and again) because your tot laughed hysterically the whole way. 44. Helping your child or grandchild open presents after his birthday party. What’d he get, what’d he get? 45. Playing backyard baseball. 46. Jumping rope. 47. Suspending your cynicism to fall in love with Disney World. 48. Scootering, skateboarding and RipStik riding. 49. Checking out the cockpits on every flight. 50. Jumping waves at the beach, holding your child’s sandy hands tightly. Patty Onderko is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn, NY.
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