What does it take to raise a child to be a happy and fulfilled adult? Gihan Shahine finds out Riham is the mother of two children, Abdel-Rahman, five, and Ahmed, three. While Ahmed seemed to be born happy and always giggles and plays actively with other kids, Riham's older son, Abdel-Rahman, was different. He was always frowning, would get easily angry and did not giggle as much as other children. Riham thinks Abdel-Rahman was born with a kind of bad temperament. Perhaps it is genetic, she says. "We acted the same with each, yet each child is totally different," says a bewildered Riham, wondering if there is anything she can do to make her elder son happy. "I believe his temperament is inborn." Riham is not alone in thinking this way. The question of whether happiness is an inborn trait, or a mood that people can somehow develop, has long been a subject of expert attention. No one really knows whether people are born happy or not, but a study published on the website babycentre.com concludes that childhood psychological and mental development is "a cocktail of nature and nurture". That is, 50 per cent of how we feel, happy or unhappy, is inborn. The study was conducted by Lise Eliot, author of What's Going on in There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life. Although happiness is "a mood rather than an inborn trait," the book suggests that "certain aspects of a baby's natural temperament -- whether she's optimistic or pessimistic, shy or bold -- may play a part in determining how happy she becomes." Whereas there's no such thing as a happiness gene, some studies, including Eliot's, suggest that "your baby's temperament -- her basic emotional and social style -- is hardwired in her brain." Heba El-Shahawi, a professor of child psychiatry at Ain Shams University in Cairo, concurs that some children are born with a "depressive personality", which can develop by age 18. "The signs start in early childhood with the child being introverted," El-Shahawi says. "The child might not speak much or smile; he might not play with other kids or have few friends; he may become pessimistic and look on the dark side of things." According to Eliot, the frontal lobes of the brain are responsible for the formation of a child's personality, as well as his positive and negative emotions. "We experience 'good' feelings in the left frontal cortex and 'bad' feelings in the right," Eliot writes. "It appears that people with happier dispositions have more activity in their left frontal lobes." That said, Eliot insists temperament is not permanent and that it can be modified by experience, since the balance between the two frontal lobes governing disposition is not fixed and their shape can change. Parents can still have a hand in changing a child's temperament and raise him to be a happy, fulfilled adult. "This is what we call gene-environment interaction: a parent can limit the effect of a poor temperament by handling it right," El-Shahawi says. Central to the proper handling of the problem is the parents' relationship with the child. "Parents need to build healthy and close relationships with their kids based on trust and understanding," El-Shahawi explains. According to Eliot, parents have plenty of time to help shape their children's personalities and attitudes since "the frontal lobes continue developing through at least the late teens." Good as all that may sound, the real challenge remains the fact that many parents may not be aware of how to spot happiness, or may not know what helps raise a child to be a happy and fulfilled adult. Recent research has indicated that many people are not good at predicting what will make them happy or sad. In the words of Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert, "if you knew exactly what the future holds, you still wouldn't know how much you would like it when you got there." "People expect that events will have a larger and more enduring impact on them -- for good or ill -- than they really do," Gilbert insists. Jim Taylor, author of Your Children are Under Attack: How Popular Culture is Destroying Your Kids' Values, also deplores the way in which many people, not only children, get misled by popular culture into thinking that happiness is to be found in wealth, power, celebrity or physical attractiveness. In fact, recent research has found that such materialistic goals are more like "false idols" that can lead to unhappiness. The newspaper USA Today quotes several recent studies showing that materialism can be "toxic for happiness," insisting instead that "even rich materialists aren't as happy as those who care less about getting and spending." These things being so, are parents who shower their children with toys and fun activities in attempts to make them happy doing the right thing? Research indicates that the answer may be no, including research carried out by psychiatrist Edward Hallowell, author of The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness, who warns that over-indulged children -- whether showered with toys or shielded from emotional discomfort -- are more likely to grow into teenagers who are bored, cynical, and joyless. There is almost a consensus among psychologists that happiness is not something you can give to your children. Rather, parents should focus on building a set of inner tools, a reservoir of inner strength, self-esteem and positive attitudes, that are necessary to weather life's ups and downs and guarantee lifetime happiness. "Children need their parents' support during their early development," El-Shahawi says. "Parents should build their children's self- confidence, which is essential for happiness, through encouragement and help them see the glass as half full rather than half empty. Children need to feel that their parents are proud of them, which is necessary in building up the self-esteem needed for future success." Parents also need to understand how happiness develops so that they can impart it to their kids. Husband and wife psychologists at the University of California in the US Carolyn Pape Cowan and Philip Cowan suggest that whereas 50 per cent of how children turn out is genetic, "about 15 percent of what happens to children can be attributed to what parents have done, 15 percent to how the marriage is going, and another 15 percent from the history of the family -- for example, the parents' own experiences as children." The happiest people, according to a USA Today story compiling recent research on happiness, surround themselves with relatives and friends. They "spend the least time alone; they pursue personal growth and intimacy; and they judge themselves by their own yardsticks, never against what others do or have." El-Shahawi sums it up in the word "satisfaction". "People feel happy when they feel good about themselves and their close relationships, no matter how rich or poor they are," she says. Adults are most satisfied, according to recent studies, when they lose themselves in "absorbing activities that cause them to forget themselves, lose track of time and stop worrying," USA Today said, quoting recent research on the topic. People are happy when they are doing what they feel they master; and those who get engaged in more than one activity have been found to be happier than those who focus on one. People who devote themselves to just one activity may get easily frustrated when they face some kind of failure in that activity. Psychologists thus advise parents to focus on developing their children's talents, helping them develop passion for a skill they can master and engage in a flow of activities that keeps their spirits up for lifelong happiness. Psychologists focus on the importance of play, especially the unstructured, random play that parents can have with their kids, since this discovers and promotes a child's skills and talents. Although organised activities and sports teach kids important values, including team work and coping with life's gains and losses, unstructured play is equally essential. Such play makes room for creativity, helps children invent, daydream and develop skills essential to future happiness. When parents engage with their children in such play, they help develop what psychologists term a "connected childhood," which is essential for a child's future happiness. Through play, a parent can teach his or her child to learn from his mistakes and to develop persistence and discipline. Even a simple game like catching a ball can be beneficial, according to Hallowell, as the child will experience the joy of succeeding due to his efforts, as well as gaining "recognition from others for his accomplishment." At the end of the day, mastering a simple skill like catching a ball will "breed a sense of control over one's life", which is a cornerstone on the journey towards a happy life. "If he tries to do something, he has the satisfaction of finding that, with persistence, he can eventually do it," Hallowell says. "Unstructured play allows a child to discover what she loves to do -- build cities out of blocks, teach counting to her stuffed animals -- which can point her toward a career that will seem like a lifetime of play." Play can also be an opportunity for parents to teach their children to cope with life's frustrations. Recent research has found that parents who let their children experience some sort of disappointment or sadness are actually building up their inner strength to cope with life's ups and downs. So, when your child sobs over a difficult puzzle he cannot solve, help him/her to solve it by himself instead of providing the solution. Managing to solve problems on their own can ultimately promote children's self-esteem and build their confidence and sense of security, which are all necessary factors in future success and happiness. "Children need to learn to tolerate some distress and some unhappiness," writes babycentre.com. "Let them struggle and figure things out on their own, because it allows them to learn how to cope." How to bring up a well-adjusted child: - Fun is fundamental: play a lot with your children. "Playing with your children will make them the focus of your attention and that gives them a good way forward," says El-Shahawi; - Discover your children's talents and promote their skills; - Build your children's inner strength to survive life's frustrations by allowing them to experience a little unhappiness; - Make sure your children have a healthy lifestyle: eat well, sleep well and play sport. Sport, according to El-Shahawi, releases endorphins in the brain, raising people's mood; - Talk and listen to your children. Ask your children if they are sad or happy, which can make them know how much you care; - Give them confidence in themselves and build their self-esteem by letting them trust in their own abilities; - Teach your child a positive attitude and to look at the positive side of life rather than the negative; - Engage them in meaningful activities and teach them that happiness can lie in giving to others and building up healthy relationships.
