01 Jul Ensuring our children’s happiness
I came across this article yesterday (click here) about a plan to test the health of our pre-schoolers (e.g. can they hear and see OK) and I thought it sounded like a great idea. There are, no doubt, children whose visual and auditory problems go undetected and who, as a result, may not flourish academically as well as they otherwise might.
But then I thought about it a bit more and concluded that we might not be going far enough.
Imagine if we also tested children for psychological strength and resilience. This might not be feasible for pre-schoolers but it would certainly be possible for young children in primary school; and imagine then if we were able to help those in whom we identified areas of concern.
Well, we don’t need to imagine what might happen because we know; what we know is that if we were able to do this more thoroughly and more widely we’d significantly reduce depression, anxiety and other forms of psychopathology (along with behavioural and conduct problems) and signfiicantly increase happiness, health and wellbeing.
Surely the happiness of our children is just as important as other aspects of their health; surely the happiness of our children would contribute to positive learning and to flourishing; surely we could be doing more about this!