Educating for happiness and resilience
Most parents and educators want children to be happy, but school does not teach children how to be happy. Schools teach achievement, thinking skills, conformity, literacy, math, discipline and some types of success. So how do we prepare children for life? How do we provide them with the skills to navigate the disappointments in life, such as unemployment, periods of depression?
Dr. Ilona Boniwell suggests that we teach children the skills of happiness, well-being and resilience. She explores:
- why it is important to teach these skills
- the benefits of providing these skills
- how teachers, educations and parents can help facilitate kids learning of these skills.
She also debunks some myths about what happiness is and explores the tyranny of choice, the dangers of comparison, the hazards of habituation, and negativity bias.
Dr Boniwell is one of the most prominent positive psychology academics in Europe. She wrote the bestseller Positive Psychology in a Nutshell and is the author or editor of five other books including the Oxford Handbook of Happiness. She founded the European Network of Positive Psychology and the first Masters in Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) in Europe. Currently, she teaches at l'Ecole Centrale Paris and assists the Government of Bhutan in developing a framework for happiness-based public policy, at the request of the UN. Her research and applied interests include: psychology of time, resilience, eudaimonic well-being and applications of positive psychology to leadership, coaching and education.
Runtime: 17 m. 58 s.
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