For a few years, now, the British government, hounded by professionals and various do-gooders, has been exercised over the question of how to make children happier. To counter a veritable epidemic of anxiety and depression among youngsters, education authorities have engaged the services of a happiness expert from the United States to conduct workshops for teachers and have run pilot programmes on emotional literacy in schools. Richard Layard, a professor at the London School of Economics and a peer in the House of Lords, goes so far as to say that teaching “the secrets of happiness” should be the central purpose of schools. 
It looked like sabotage, then, when it was revealed early this week that researchers had discovered that sad children could concentrate better than happy ones and so cope better with tasks demanding attention to detail -- which real learning generally does. Efforts to boost happiness in children may have a negative impact on their cognitive development, warned academics at the University of Plymouth in the UK and the University of Virginia in the United States. “The good feeling that accompanies happiness comes at a hidden cost,” they wrote in the journal Developmental Science. “It leads to a particular style of thinking that is suited for some types of situations, but not others.” (1)
Does that mean it is time to enforce a little misery among the young and the sanguine? Not at all. The fact is that the study tells us very little about either happiness or misery, which are stable conditions; it tells us mainly about feelings, or moods, produced by passing stimuli.
Teachers everywhere know this. They are well aware that the quality of home life -- the presence of two parents who are able to impart to their children good values and habits -- is the key to the behavioural and mental health problems they encounter in so many young students. Family breakdown was a major issue at teachers’ conferences in the UK earlier this year. It emerged as the leading factor in a recent poll of children and adults on the subject of children’s happiness. It has been highlighted by masses of social research.
Authorities who really care about children’s wellbeing know where they should start: support for the two-parent family based on marriage -- real marriage, that is, not the up and coming look-alikes. Focusing on remedial “emotional intelligence” lessons in schools is a feeble substitute that looks more and more dishonest.
Notes:
(1) “A hidden cost of happiness in children,” by Simone Schnall et al, Developmental Science, June 2008
1 comment:
It seems like the school system should be revised before we start encouraging kids to NOT be happy!
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