Teaching Your Child How To Be Happy For Others

How do we teach our children to respond appropriately to other people’s success?

1. Teach them to be grateful.

The best way to combat jealousy is with gratitude. The root of jealousy is truncated when you stop thinking about what you’re entitled to, and focus on all the glorious things that you were freely given. It’s an old adage, “Count your blessings,” but it really works.
If you’re not familiar with Ann Voscamp then maybe you’re living under a rock. So climb on out and familiarize yourself! Anyways, she has a great post on how to Teach Kids To Be Grateful. She lists fifteen super easy, tangible things that we parents can do to engrain gratitude in our children.

2. Teach them that happiness comes from bringing happiness to others.

It’s not rocket-science. And as parents, we should not be surprised by it. After all, aren’t we most happy when we see our kids happy and enjoying life?
We have to teach our kids that their happiness comes from bringing happiness to others. My friend Chris, over at The Mom Cafe has an amazing story about her daughter who struggled profoundly in swim team. I love what happened in this story and how her daughter was able to just shock everyone with her strength and sweetness of character. This is the kind of girl I want Coco to become.

3. Teach them to identify both their strengths and weaknesses.

They ask you this in job interviews, right? Why shouldn’t we teach our children to be honest with themselves. Having this information will not hurt them if we use it as a way to grow. Remember the difference between a fixed and growth mindset? Yah, it comes in here too.
It’s important to cultivate a healthy confidence in our kids. We want them to take pride in things they do well. It’s our job to help them find it.

• We should praise them for things they do well.
• We should praise and encourage them in things they don’t do well.
• We should praise other people in front of them so that they learn to recognize and be happy for other people’s achievements.

What is challenging about all of this is that we have to cultivate it in ourselves first. I never knew raising children would be so convicting for my own soul.