According to a study conducted in 67 countries, which interviewed parents from diverse cultures, faiths and income levels, happiness is what most parents wish for their children.

AS a human being, our emotions and what we project will affect the people around us. Depressed people will bring others down and happy people will lift others up. Babies and children especially, pick up on our emotions and will react to them.

As parents, we shoulder the task of cultivating a healthy parent-child relationship; but just as important is guiding your child to achieve his own happiness in life.

To start with, it is essential to realise that you cannot make your child happy by merely satisfying all his needs and wants. The key is to be a positive role model and offer steadfast support to constantly encourage him to be happy.

It is not possible to teach a child values that you do not possess yourself. You will need to lead by example by looking to your own happiness as a married couple.

How can you get started?

Here are six simple steps to ensure happiness between couples:

1. Preserve your marriage

Ensure a healthy and stable relationship with your spouse a life full of love, empathy, effective communication, forgiveness, tolerance, loyalty, patience and commitment to the marriage.

Happy parents make happy children. Children feel secure living with happy parents.

2. Pay attention to your spouse

If you are busy or need to concentrate on something, let your spouse know that its not a good time to talk; make sure you make the time to talk later.

3. Share the good times

Spend time together doing fun things. Need ideas on couple activities? Exercise, leisurely walks, or even going for a short vacation together, are some of the things you can do.

4. Learn from the past

Avoid or minimise situations and/or actions that will get your spouse worked up. For example, if your spouse dislikes Japanese foods, dont surprise him/her with an anniversary dinner at a Japanese restaurant!

5. Be polite and courteous

Simple things like saying Please and Thank you will go a long way towards making your spouse feel appreciated and respected.

6. Respect each others privacy

Privacy is a fundamental need, so make sure that you respect your spouses privacy. This refers not only to their belongings, but also to anything they confide to you.

Happiness comes from within

Once you have taken steps to ensure your own happiness, you can now start to look at extending this to your child as well.

So, how can you tell if you are raising a happy child? While there are no hard and fast rules, there are things that parents can do to ensure that your child will be happier and not prone to undue sadness.

Here are five steps to help teach your child about happiness in life:

1. Label and/or talk about his feelings

Teach your child how to recognise his emotions. You can help by paying attention to your child and help him label his feelings, for example, It looks like you are feeling sad because your friends forgot to invite you to play together, or You look very excited about going to your friends birthday party.

2. Coping with disappointments in life

Acknowledging your childs feelings is the first step; next, you need to help him keep things in perspective.

Let him know that its not the end of the world if he faces any disappointment.

Do what you can to rebuild your childs self-image and confidence with positive encouragement.

3. Strong and lasting relationships need good social skills

No child is an island; guide your child on starting a friendship and nurturing it as he and his friends grow up.

One method is to help your child understand that different people have different points of view. Try describing other peoples feelings and talk to your child about how other people might feel as this helps him to develop empathy.

4. Find pleasure in the activity

Whenever your child takes part in activities, games, or even studies, he should do so without expecting perfection. While striving for perfection is fine, go easy on your child if he does fall short of your expectations; remember to love your child unconditionally.

5. Be self-motivated

Your child should not rely only on praise as a motivating factor for him to achieve something. Instead of trying to motivate or push your child, try inspiring him to want to achieve his goal instead.

However, you should bear in mind that your child may be highly motivated to achieve certain goals that could be unrelated to school.

Parents should also watch out for the following pitfalls:

Stepping in to fight their childrens battles.

Unable to accept their mistakes.

Making decisions for their children.

While striving for perfection is fine, go easy on your child if he falls short of your expectations; remember to love your child unconditionally. Filepic

At the end of the day, your relationship with your child should be a close-knit one, which is built on love, trust, respect, and mutual understanding of each other. It is important that parents be aware of and practise the following fundamental issues:

1. Unconditional acceptance of your child

As a parent, accepting your childs feelings, thoughts and experiences are important as it goes a long way towards healthy interactions between you and your child.

While it means that you should acknowledge and understand your childs feelings, you do not need to be accepting towards his behaviour. Acceptance and agreement are completely different, and the line needs to be drawn somewhere.

2. Unconditional love for your child

Love your child, with no strings attached. No matter what he does, your love for him should remain. It must be something that your child can always count on to be there for him.

This allows your child to be secure, safe and validated in your relationship.

Do not fall into the trap of placing boundaries or conditions on your love, for example, Youve been naughty, so I dont love you right now.

3. Expression of love through effective communication (both verbal and non-verbal)

Children often need lots of reassurance. Ensure that you provide them with enough words of affirmation that you love them.

Other non-verbal means of letting them know you care involve physical touch (hugs, kisses, etc) and making sure you spend enough quality time with your child.

4. Marital discord and its impact on your childs emotional well-being

Bear in mind that children are silent observers and can often perceive any marital discord between their parents.

As your child is emotionally attached to both you and your spouse, any marital discord will ultimately affect him emotionally and may even scar him for life.

Statistics have shown that the chances of divorce are higher in people whose parents have experienced discord in their own marriage.

Serious marital discord is a traumatic experience in childhood that can significantly affect the childs immediate and future mental well-being.

Positive Parenting: By Dr M. SWAMENATHAN