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I tend to save the best until last and the 8th Activity in The Ultimate Kid’s Guide to Happiness is no exception.

Science has proven the psychological and physiological benefits to laughter and playfulness.  It is with this exercise I simply encourage you to take part in goofy play and laughter with your child as much as possible, and encourage them to do the same with their friends and siblings.

Sit back and reach into your memories of childhood for a moment.

Can you recall in your mind’s eye when you were engaged in joyful play?

This was serious stuff!

You were determined to play your heart out, and you did. You laughed really hard at super silly things, rolled around on the grass, chased your friends around the playground and you made up imaginary stories and acted them out with the seriousness of a Broadway actor.

Play is the WORK of a child and the more they get the opportunity to be fully engaged in uninterrupted play, the happier and successful they will be throughout the rest of their lives.

It is in play that children learn

• to play fairly and productively work with others,
• to be creative thinkers
• about leadership and coaching
• how to be coachable (conflict resolution)
• to build and maintain relationships that can enhance their lives forever.

Laughter is a full body work-out and it is so much fun!

Can you remember laughing so hard it made your stomach muscles ache?

Can you think of things that are so funny that you can’t help but start laughing?

Have you ever experienced laughing so much you actually forget what made you start laughing in the first place?

Laughter is such a joyful activity and the physical and emotional benefits are enormous. In fact laughter has been shown in studies to strengthen our immune system.

Sometimes as grown ups it does us a world of good to just let go of being a grown up and giggle, be silly and involve ourselves in imaginary play, and doing so with our kids strengthens the attachment and our relationship with them.

It also teaches our kids that it is okay to be a kid, even when you’re an adult.

Take the time every day to find something to laugh about with your children and you will see and feel the benefits, without any doubt!

After a tough day, to laugh and play makes all our grown up problems disappear.

Patrick

Activity 7 in The Ultimate Kid’s Guide to Happiness:

Our imagination is so much more powerful than we can possibly imagine and we can use it as a tool to help us live the extraordinary life we truly want to live.

The 7th Activity in The Ultimate Kid’s Guide to Happiness introduces kids to Creative Visualization, or in clinical terms, Mental Imagery which has been used by some of the most successful people throughout history. Continue reading

Activity 6 in The Ultimate Kid’s Guide to Happiness is all about getting your kids to start thinking about things they would like to accomplish and writing those goals down.

Research shows that only a very small percentage of the population actually write down their goals, and studies also prove we are 50% more likely to achieve our goals by writing them down and we are 200% more likely to accomplish our goals if we review them on a regular basis. Continue reading

I can’t wait till January 28^th, 2010 because that is the date Rhonda Ryder, founder of KidsAwakening.com airs her radio show Inspired Parenting where she interviews me about An Exercise in Happiness.  Follow this link to the radio show.

Rhonda’s questions delve deep into what motivated me to create an Exercise in Happiness and of course how and why the program actually works. Continue reading

Our desires, our intentions to achieve them and the beliefs we hold about our ability to achieve them are what fuel success at any age…

…and of course the lack of desire, having no intentions to succeed along with self-limiting beliefs is the recipe for an unwanted life.

Activities 5, 6 and 7 all tie in together to help kids understand this. Continue reading

Activity #4 in The Ultimate Kid’s Guide to Happiness© discusses one of the most difficult abilities a person can develop, however doing so has been proven in scientific research to provide a dramatic increase one’s level of emotional wellbeing.

The ability to FORGIVE others and ourselves comes with extraordinary benefits both physiologically and psychologically. We can model this way of being for our children by showing them we have the capacity to forgive others. Continue reading

The best way to bring out the deepest feelings of true and lasting happiness in ourselves is to choose words and actions that bring out happiness in others.

Anything, like happily giving a whole day to help a friend move, giving someone a smile or helping a child feel better when you see they are having a tough day, are just a few things you can do that provide benefits far greater than you might imagine. Continue reading

To hear that “we learn and grow” through our mistakes and failures is one thing, but to react to a mistake or a failure in a positive way when perhaps someone around you isn’t so quick to let you “live it down”, especially for a kid can be a challenge and quite a blow to their self-esteem and self-confidence. Continue reading