Happiness is not my ultimate goal for my own kids. Unhappiness certainly isn’t my goal for them, but here’s a deep irony in parenting: the more we emphasize our children’s happiness and “feeling better,” the more we set up them up for an adulthood of anxiety. Setting happiness as the goal compels us to solve our kids’ problems rather than equip them to solve their own. We live in a goal-oriented society, so in order to make our kids happy and encourage their “success,” we often minimize or eliminate their disappointments in favor of providing immediate wins. We take them out of struggle and
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