The Danish Way of Parenting: What the Happiest People in the World Know About Raising Confident, Capable Kids

by Jessica Joelle Alexander

The Danish philosophy behind parenting and their way of raising children yields some pretty powerful results: resilient, emotionally secure, happy kids who turn into resilient, emotionally secure, happy adults who then repeat this powerful parenting style with their own kids.

The more we talked about it, the more it became clear that there was indeed a Danish parenting philosophy, but it was woven so tightly into the fabric of daily life and Danish culture that it wasn’t immediately visible to those of us in the midst of it.

Happy kids grow up to be happy adults who raise happy kids, and so on.

There is an incredible amount of self-awareness involved in being a good parent. It requires us to look at what we do when we are tired and stressed and stretched to our limits. These actions are called our “default settings.” Our default settings are the actions and reactions we have when we are too tired to choose a better way.

Most of our default settings are inherited from our own parents. They are ingrained and programmed into us like a motherboard on a computer. They are the factory settings we return to when we are at our wit’s end and not thinking; they have been installed in us by our upbringing.

That’s why it is so important to look at your default settings, study them, and understand them.

Increasing our self-awareness and making conscious decisions about our actions and reactions are the first steps toward powerful life change. This is how we become better parents—and better people.

What if we told you that free play teaches children to be less anxious? It teaches them resilience. And resilience has been proven to be one of the most important factors in predicting success as an adult.

Educators and people who set the agenda for children’s schooling didn’t want them to engage in education because they felt that children should first and

foremost be children and play.

In Denmark, there isn’t a sole emphasis on education or sports, but rather on the whole child.

Parents and teachers focus on things like socialization, autonomy, cohesion, democracy, and self-esteem.

They know their kids will be well educated and learn many skills. But true happiness isn’t coming only from a good education.

child who learns to cope with stress, makes friends, and yet is realistic about the world has a set of life skills that are very different from being a math genius, for example. And by life skills, the Danes are talking about all aspects of life, not only career life. For what is a math genius without the ability to cope with life’s ups and downs?

They believe that children fundamentally need space and trust to allow them to master things by themselves, to make and solve their own problems. This creates genuine self-esteem and self-reliance because it comes from the child’s own internal cheerleader, not from someone else.

The word locus in Latin means “place” or “location,” and so the locus of control simply refers to the degree to which a person feels he has a sense of control over his own life and the events that affect him.

We are all affected by our surroundings, culture, and social status, but how much we feel we can control our lives despite those factors is the difference between internal and external locus of control.

Studies have repeatedly shown that children, adolescents, and adults who have a strong external locus of control are

predisposed to anxiety and depression—they become anxious because they believe they have little or no control over their fate, and they become depressed when thi...

This basically states that a child needs the right amount of space to learn and grow in the zones that are right for him or her, with the right amount of help.

They trust their children to be able to do and try new things and give them space to build their own trust in themselves.

If children feel too pressured, they can lose the joy in what they are doing, and this can lead to fear and anxiety.

Children who are pushed or pulled too much risk developing an external locus of control because they aren’t controlling their development; instead, external factors are, and the foundation for their self-esteem becomes shaky.

Children who are pushed to read earlier, for example, may read better than their peers initially, but those levels even out in a few years’ time—and at what cost? The pushed children exhibit higher levels of anxiety and lower self-esteem in the long run.

Building confidence rather than self-esteem is like making a nice house with little foundation.

Resilience isn’t cultivated by avoiding stress, you see, but by learning how to tame and master it.

Since children fundamentally want to play with each other, these situations require them to practice getting along with others as equals—a vital skill for happiness in later life.

In the English translations of Andersen’s fairy tales, adults have paid close attention to what they think children should be spared from hearing. In Denmark and in older versions, it is more up to the readers to come up with their own conclusions and judgments.

We learn more about character from our sufferings than from our successes; therefore, it’s important to examine all parts of life.

If we teach our children to recognize and accept their authentic feelings, good or bad, and act in a way that’s consistent with their values, the challenges and rough patches in life won’t topple them.

This inner compass, an authentic self-esteem based on values, becomes the most powerful guiding force in one’s life, largely resistant to external pressures.

Being a model of emotional health is powerful parenting.

Emotional honesty, not perfection, is what children truly need from their parents.

Acknowledging and accepting all emotions, even the hard ones, early on makes it easier to maneuver in the world.

Self-deception is the worst kind of deception and is a dangerous message to send to our kids. They will learn to do the same. Self-deception is confusing because it makes us ignore our real feelings

In contrast, authenticity is searching your heart and gut for what is right for you and your family and not being afraid to follow through with it.

Learning to act on intrinsic goals, such as improving relationships or engaging in hobbies you love, rather than on extrinsic goals, such as buying a new car, is what is proven to create true well-being.

Pushing your own or others’ dreams onto your kids, rather than listening carefully to their desires and respecting their unique pace of growth and development, is another pitfall.

Being too pressured or praised, children may learn to do things for external recognition rather than for internal satisfaction, which becomes a default setting for life. It encourages extrinsic goals: needing something outside themselves to make them happy.