Are we looking for happiness in the wrong place?

Dear parents, I am anything but a pessimist. When it comes to bringing up children, I am very pleased about the many positive changes that have taken place in recent decades. Parents treat their children with more warmth, appreciation and respect. Most young people say they have a good relationship with their parents, and more and more fathers are actively involved in bringing up their children. Our generation of parents should give themselves a pat on the back for this!

However, there are also developments that worry me. One of them is that although parents today look after their children intensively, the children and young people themselves are not needed by our society. We invest a lot in children and expect them to endeavour for a future that is a long way off for them. However, we hardly manage to give our children the feeling that they are important to the community. It was exhausting for my parents when they had to help out on the farm or around the house after school or look after their siblings. But they felt needed.

A key to happiness

Recently, I have come across many teenagers and young adults who doubt the meaning of life. What many of them have in common is the feeling that they are not needed in the here and now. A 25-year-old student said to me in a seminar last week: «I just don't know what I'm here for. Ever since I was 7 - 18 years ago - everything has been about getting good grades. It's as if I've been here forever to prepare myself for a life that will happen one day.»

If we want our children and young people to be happy, experience life as meaningful and develop a healthy sense of self-worth, we should ask ourselves much more often what our children and young people can do for others.

People who do voluntary work have greater self-confidence and a healthier sense of self-worth.

We should give them the opportunity to feel part of a community and experience that they and their contribution matter. Children and young people should be able to experience this: People are counting on me. Thanks to me and my contribution, my family, my class and perhaps even the world will be a little better.

Several studies now show just how important this experience is. They conclude, for example, that people who volunteer have greater self-confidence and a healthier sense of self-worth. Young people who volunteer at least one hour a week for others or a good cause have a lower risk of consuming alcohol or smoking cigarettes. They also have better social skills and do better at school.

Important tasks are fulfilling

However, not all help is the same. Children and young people should be allowed to help in a way that has an impact and in which they can take responsibility and utilise their skills. It may not be very fulfilling for a twelve-year-old to clear the dishes three days a week and cut cucumbers and carrots during meal preparation. The feeling of having taken responsibility and made a difference is much more likely to materialise when an important task is entirely in our hands.

For example, when a young person of this age does the shopping and cooking for the family one day a week and can be proud when everyone enjoys their meal and the parents say thank you because they have experienced a real relief that day. What tasks would challenge your child? Can they help with the cooking within their abilities? Plan a Sunday outing for the family? Plant a vegetable patch in the garden? Look after a younger sibling? Help a friend with school problems? Take on a social task in the community? Support an environmental protection project? The more your child can represent their own values and realise their own interests, the more they will gain from this experience.

School projects that promote a sense of community

Schools also benefit when pupils are allowed to do more for each other, for the school, the community or a better world. Recently, several teachers have told me about such projects. Their experiences are very similar: The children are more motivated, more willing to learn and often surprise the teachers with an unexpected degree of self-organisation, personal responsibility and creativity.

At the end of my presentation for a parents' council, the person in charge pointed out that several more parents were needed to prepare the school party. There was an awkward silence and everyone looked down. Everyone hoped that others would come forward. This made me think of a school social worker who told me that the organisation of the school party at her school has been completely in the hands of the pupils for several years.

We are hardly able to give our children the feeling that they are important to the community.

She proposed and initiated this project. Her conclusion: «It took energy at first. But soon I was completely blown away by how well the pupils managed to define the tasks and distribute them to individual groups. Every child in the participating classes found a place that suited them.»

Other teachers at a primary school told me about how two classes created a village pond and learnt a lot about the local flora and fauna and water management in the process. Many pupils even came at the weekend armed with shovels to dig the hole.

How about creating a children's playground for the younger pupils in craft lessons? Or a nesting place for birds and insects? Could a theatre for the retirement home be prepared in language lessons? Could the eighth-graders prepare a lesson for the fifth-graders? What would it be like if the pupils worked together to beautify the school? Or if classes talked about how pupils could contribute to making every child feel at home at school?