It was an afternoon like any other. I had picked my kids up from their after-school activities, and we were driving to dinner at my sister-in law’s house. Because I’d left work an hour early, I still had some calls to make.

I figured I’d make the calls in the car while driving to dinner—the upside of rush hour traffic was that there’d be plenty of time. Since I mostly write from home in a room off our kitchen, I’m well-practiced at working while keeping an ear out for my kids–or, in this case, an eye on the road.

I put an audio book on for the kids and used voice recognition to dial my first call, which went to voicemail. As I was leaving a long message, my kids started talking to me at the same time, asking me to turn up the volume on the audiobook. I find it hugely irritating when my teen and pre-teen kids can hear that I’m talking to someone else but start talking to me anyway.

“Can’t you hear that I was leaving a message??!!” I yelled at them after I thought I hung up the phone. “Can YOU hear and respond to someone who is talking to you while YOU are talking to someone else!!?”

I was getting going, fueled by the day’s stresses. “I HATE IT WHEN YOU TALK TO ME WHEN I’M ALREADY TALKING TO SOMEONE ELSE!! IT MAKES ME FEEL CRAZY!!! AND IT MAKES ME SOUND SO UNPROFESSIONAL!!!”

And then, in my headset, I heard a long beep, and a lady-computer told me that I’d reached the end of the length of the message, and that the call would now end. Holy crow: I’d been yelling at my kids right into my colleague’s voicemail. Talk about sounding unprofessional!

My kids don’t usually cower (or suddenly obey) when I yell. When I get angry or snappish with them, they say things like “Mom, could you please use a kind voice?” or even “I have a hard time understanding you when you talk to me like that.” Both of these phrases they’ve stolen directly from me; it’s what I say to them when they are demanding or disrespectful or whiney.

But I don’t have a history of changing my own tone in response to their polite/sassy requests. Instead, I’ve justified yelling at my kids. It’s different than when they talk to me in a way that I don’t like. Because I’m the parent. Moms and dads yell when kids make us mad. Kids need to not do the things that make us yell, and then we won’t yell anymore. Ergo, if I’m yelling, clearly it is the kids’ fault, and therefore their responsibility to change.

Except that I always knew, on some level, that this is faulty logic. The embarrassment of yelling at my kids in front of a work colleague provided the jolt of insight I needed to see that my yelling couldn’t be justified. Moreover, yelling at my kids wasn’t actually changing their behavior. Although we all know that yelling occasionally works in the short-run, generally speaking, it is not an effective teaching tool. As a parenting expert, I’m very well-versed in much more effective ways to shape kids’ behavior and habits.

Enter Rona Renner, a dear friend and long-time colleague —you may know her from the “Happiness Matters” podcasts we did together. Rona is a master parent coach, with a specialty in understanding temperament and, you guessed it, helping parents who lose their temper. And she has a fantastic new book out!

Is That Me Yelling? provided me with the framework that I needed to discover why I was really yelling at my kids, and it gave me the tools for responding differently in the future. I discovered, by using Renner’s “Yelling Tracker,” that I typically only raise my voice with my kids when I’m multi-tasking or stressed out—when I’m really focused on something besides them. Working from home or from the car means that I’m often trying to do two or even three things at once, and this dramatically shortens my fuse.

I worked out a plan to work less in the presence of my kids—and to give them my full attention when I’m with them. They still do things that make me angry; the difference is that I am much more able and likely to respond skillfully to their missteps when I’m not trying to do something else at the same time.

Is That Me Yelling? makes an important contribution to the betterment of humanity. That’s not an overstatement: When we are compassionate and peaceful with our children, they, in turn, become compassionate and peaceful in the world. And in a world filled with strife and irritants, this is just what we need!

Now that my kids are pre-teens and teens, dinnertime keeps getting pushed later and later, squished between after school activities and homework time. I know that this is a tough topic for families today, who often think about time together the same way starving people think about food. Even if you are managing to feed your kids a reasonably healthy dinner, few of the benefits of family mealtimes are transmitted when parents eat separately from their children, or when we eat in front of the TV.

The Benefits
Kids who eat dinner with their families regularly are more emotionally stable and are less likely to abuse drugs and alcohol. They get better grades. They have fewer depressive symptoms, particularly among adolescent girls. And they are less likely to become obese or have an eating disorder. Family dinners even trump reading to your kids in terms of preparing them for school. And these associations hold even after researchers control for family connectedness, which means that the benefits of family meals go above and beyond being close-knit as a family.

Why is dinnertime such a powerful tool for raising happy kids? How can we as parents get the most out of it? Adults model important things during dinner, like…

…Adventurous Eating
The most obvious thing that we grown-ups should be modeling during family mealtimes is healthy eating. Eating a VARIETY of foods is important for health—and physical health is very important for happiness. Unfortunately my kids would prefer to eat mac n’ cheese (specifically the shells with white cheddar) 3 meals a day. To say that they resist new foods would be a gross understatement. I read once that this hearty resistance to new foods is an evolutionary trait designed to keep our young from eating anything green or unripe. Which makes it up to us parents to train our children to eat lots of different kinds of foods.

Here’s how: Research shows that kids learn to like new foods by watching adults and other kids eating them. Here’s the bad news: it’s all about repetition. Meaning your kid needs to watch you eat the food, uh, a lot—maybe daily, maybe for years.

Paul Rozin, an anthropologist, traced how kids in Mexico learned to eat spicy foods. Most Mexican babies and toddlers hate spicy foods, but they grow up watching adults eating it and around the time they are 5 or 6 years old they begin enjoying what we Americans would think of as “adult food.” What I think is funny about this study is that the family dogs that hang out near the table also learn to eat spicy foods through their owners’ modeling—stray dogs that never eat with families but have equal access to spicy foods can’t be trained to eat them.

I talk a good game about rarely serving my kids something separate than what the adults are eating, but walking the talk is less of a strength. “My kids eat anything, don’t fix them something different!” I say blithely when we’re over at friends’ houses. Molly gets that adults love kids who eat anything, and when faced with a plate of “new” food, she’ll pretend to take a bite and then will declare with gusto, “I LOVE CUCUMBER RAVIOLIS!” to which all the adults ooo and ahh and say things like, “Golly, I wish Jack would eat spinach pudding!” Nine times out of 10 Molly hasn’t even tasted anything.

Second only to eating, cooking is my favorite hobby. So it is a little disheartening when there is no one eager to eat my labor of love without first being bribed or cajoled. Still, what I should do is just expose them to the food (it’s on their plate, I’m eating it) and leave it at that. The experts don’t recommend the type of encouragement to eat that I am prone to: “Fiona, if you take three bites of that delicious slow-cooked pazole your mother worked so hard to make you can have two Girl Scout cookies for dessert.” Nutritionist and psychologist Ellyn Satter gives us a good rule of thumb: “the parent is responsible for the what, when and where of feeding, and the child is responsible for the how much and whether of eating.” Hard for me to do, but after about 6 months of always putting salad on my kids plates and then letting them ignore it, they now often eat their salad.

…and Social Skills
So many social skills are learned at the dinner table I hardly know where to begin. The research is really compelling around language development and dinnertime – and language is the most important facet of social intelligence that we have.

A team at the Harvard Ed School wanted to know where children learned the rare words that they had found were particularly good markers of literacy. Of the 2,000 words they were looking for, only 143 of them came from parents reading to their children. More than 1,000 were learned at the dinner table. This is why dinner loses its power when we isolate kid meals from adult meals. My 13-year-old isn’t going to be able to teach my 11—year—old all those SAT words (though I’m sure she could teach her about 250 euphemisms for, oh, just about any word they’d lose screen time for using).

Manners are a more important social skill than we sometimes think. As a sociologist, I believe that certain social norms teach kids about the emotions that make up a happy life. When I say, “Molly, don’t interrupt your sister,” I am teaching her about reciprocity and empathy. When they watch me offer a guest the best cut of meat, they learn generosity. Simple acts of gratitude, like saying thank you to someone for passing the salt, are happiness building blocks.

Social skills, including language, are just that – they are skills that are built over time, better learned by example than explicit instruction. Kids develop any skill better if they learn it in a routine situation that feels safe, and the dinner table might just be the best place to teach and learn certain skills. The good news is that there needn’t be loads of adults around—single parent families who have regular dinnertime routines reap the same benefits.

If you have trouble getting food on the table, check out my Happiness on Autopilot online class for added incentive and support.

A version of this article was originally posted on Greater Good.

 

Might be that sitting with your legs crossed repeating stuff like “May all beings be free from suffering,” is a little too far-out for you. I’m a scientist for crying out loud, so you can imagine how I might feel meditating while surrounded by prominent neuroscientists, which I once did on a 7-day silent meditation retreat. Except that I actually didn’t feel silly.

Why?

Because research demonstrates the incredible power of loving-kindness meditation: No need to be self-conscious when this stuff might be more effective than Prozac. Also called metta, loving-kindness meditation is the simple practice of directing well-wishes towards other people.

Here’s How to Do It

The general idea is to sit comfortably with your eyes closed, and imagine what you wish for your life. Formulate your desires into three or four phrases. Traditionally they would be something like this:

May I be healthy and strong. May I be happy. May I be filled with ease. Loving-kindness meditation is a simple repetition of these phrases, but directing them at different people. I do this with my kids before bed. We visualize together who we are directing the metta towards, and at first I say something (May you be happy) and the kids repeat it after me. After a few repetitions, we start saying them in unison. The phrases we use are “May you be healthy and strong. May you be happy. May you be peaceful.”

1. Start with by directing the phrases at yourself: May I be happy.

2. Next, direct the metta towards someone you feel thankful for or someone who has helped you.

3. Now visualize someone you feel neutral about—people you neither like nor dislike. This one can be harder than you’d think: Makes me realize how quick we can be to judge people as either positive or negative in our lives.

4. Ironically, the next one can be easier: visualizing the people you don’t like or who you are having a hard time with. Kids who are being teased or bullied at school often feel quite empowered when they send love to the people making them miserable.

5. Finally, direct the metta towards everyone universally: “May all beings everywhere be happy.”

In this 3-minute video, Sylvia Boorstein, author of Happiness is an Inside Job, teaches how to do this. Another good resource is Sharon Salzberg—she wrote Loving-Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. Doing this with kids of all ages doesn’t need to be complicated; most are good at using their imaginations to send love and well-wishes. You don’t really need to read books about this: loving-kindness meditation is as simple it seems. People write books about it because it is so powerful.

Here’s What You Get When You Send Love

Loving-kindness meditation does far more than produce momentary good feelings. Over a nine week period, research showed that this type of meditation increased people’s experiences of positive emotions. (If you are working on improving your ratio of positive to negative emotions, start with metta!) The research shows compellingly that it actually puts people on “trajectories of growth,” leaving them better able to ward off depression and “become ever more satisfied with life.” This is probably because it increases a wide range of those resources that make for a meaningful and successful life, like having an increased sense of purpose, stronger social support, and less illness. Research even shows that loving-kindness meditation “changes the way people approach life” for the better.

I’ve blogged before about social connections and how important they are for health and happiness. Doing a simple loving-kindness meditation can make us feel less isolated and more connected to those around us: one study showed that a SINGLE SEVEN MINUTE loving-kindness meditation made people feel more connected to and positive about both loved ones and total strangers, and more accepting of themselves. Imagine what a regular practice could do!

Photo courtesy of Emily Huang

What do I do when I have a “bad mother” moment?  What can we do instead of losing our temper?

Here’s the short answer: try to be more mindful.  In the heat of the moment, I may feel like I’m losing my mind, but really I’ve lost my mindfulness.

What is Mindfulness, Really?

Like gratitude, altruism, and strong social ties, mindfulness is definitely a part of the happiness Holy Grail. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the scientist who first “translated” Buddhist practices of mindfulness into a secular program, defines mindfulness as the “awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experiences moment by moment.”

You can try being mindful right here, right now. What are you feeling in your body right now? What themes do your thoughts keep returning to—can you notice and label them? Mindfulness is not necessarily a lack of emotion or a state of total calm. We can be feeling furious and pay mindful attention to that experience. Nor is mindfulness necessarily the suppression of thought, or an altered state of consciousness. Mindfulness is often a running conversation with ourselves, describing our experiences as they are happening: I am feeling really frustrated with Fiona…. And then stepping back to label: …frustrated, frustrated. I’m not dealing with her behavior. Denial, not dealing. I just want to get done with this grocery shopping and get out of here. I want her to stop taunting her sister. Wanting, wanting. Notice the lack of judgment that is a part of Kabat-Zinn’s definition: I’m reporting what is, not chastising myself for feeling angry at my daughter or for not dealing with her bad behavior.

Parenting Mindfully

Practicing mindfulness doesn’t just lead to decreased stress and increased pleasure in parenting, but it also brings profound benefits to kids. Parents who practiced mindful parenting for a year were more satisfied with their parenting skills and their interactions with their children—though no new parenting practices beyond just being mindful had been taught to them. Amazingly, over the course of the year-long study, the behavior of these mindful parents’ kids also changed for the better: they got along better with their siblings, were less aggressive, and their social skills improved. All their parents did was practice mindfulness!

So how do we parent mindfully? It takes constant practice. I am well-trained in mindfulness practices, but I still struggle. An example of real-life unmindful parenting: the other morning everyone woke up late, and Molly was making us even later. Instead of getting dressed she was drawing. I called from the other room, “Did you feed the dog?” which prompted her to go get her pet rat out of the cage. Without actually taking note of the situation—without any mindfulness, that is—I became more and more irritated with her.

I started to bark orders. “Molly! Get dressed!” And then I let loose a doozy: “Molly! What is up with you!? It is like you are 3 years old, not 6! Do I need to come in there and dress you myself?” For the record, I’ve never found insulting my children to be particularly effective, and it didn’t work this time, either. She flew into a rage, screaming things like, “I’m not going to listen to you if you use mean words!”

If I could rewind the morning and begin more mindfully, things would have been entirely different. All I really needed to do was to take stock of the situation: notice my feelings of anxiety and exhaustion. Notice that Molly’s exhaustion was also making her distractible and emotional, and gently help her stay focused rather than boss her around.

Accepting the situation non-judgmentally—rather than futilely trying to force it to be something other than it was, or chastising myself for sleeping through the alarm—would have left me open to more productive and positive alternatives.

For me, the keys to mindful parenting are as follows: first, notice what is happening (and what you’re feeling and thinking) and second, accept what is going on without judgment.

If you want to become a more mindful parent—and reap the incredible benefits that come along with it—I highly recommend Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book on this subject, Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting, pre-order Shauna Shapiro’s new book Mindful Discipline: A Loving Approach to Setting Limits and Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, or if you are a new mother, Cassi Vieten’s book Mindful Motherhood. For additional support, check out Mindful Parenting, my online class that teaches how mindfulness can not only make you happier but your kids less stressed.

Loving-kindness meditation does far more than produce momentary good feelings.

Research convincingly shows that it actually puts people on “trajectories of growth,” leaving them better able to ward off depression and “become ever more satisfied with life.” This is probably because it increases a wide range of those resources that make for a meaningful and successful life, like having an increased sense of purpose, stronger social support, and less illness. Research even shows that loving-kindness meditation “changes the way people approach life” for the better.

Moreover, doing a simple loving-kindness meditation can make us feel less isolated and more connected to those around us: one study showed that a SINGLE SEVEN MINUTE loving-kindness meditation made people feel more connected to and positive about both loved ones and total strangers, and more accepting of themselves. Imagine what a regular practice could do!

To deepen your understanding of the benefits of mindfulness and meditation in your parenting, register for my Mindful Parenting class.  We’ll cover how to kickstart a mindfulness practice in your life, strategies that you can use immediately and offer resources for further practice.

We know intuitively that how happy we are—in a relationship or otherwise—affects our children.  Our emotions are contagious, and so when a romantic partner loves us unconditionally, the happiness and security that love brings can spill over, to our children’s benefit.  Romance also has the potential to make us better parents: positive emotions (like love) and the social support of a partner can make us warmer and more responsive to our children.

An interesting study presented at a meeting of the American Psychological Association by Robert Epstein and Shannon Fox shows this to be true in a different way.

The researchers compared the effectiveness of 10 important parenting practices and skills; for example, they examined how well parents reported supporting their children’s education, and to what extent they provide educational opportunities for them.  Here are the top three most important “parenting competencies,” as reported by Epstein in Scientific American Mind, in terms of their influence on kids’ health, happiness, and school success, as well as the quality of the parent’s relationship with their children:

1. Love and affection.  You support and accept the child, are physically affectionate, and spend quality one-on-one time together.

2. Stress management. You take steps to reduce stress for yourself and your child, practice relaxation techniques and promote positive interpretations of events.

3. Relationship skills.  You maintain a healthy relationship with your spouse, significant other and/or co-parent and model effective relationship skills with other people.

Here is what I think is amazing about that list: two of those three most important practices aren’t even parenting skills, per se, in that they don’t directly affect our children.  Or do they?

We all know that when we are stressed out, our stress spills over, and often makes our children anxious. So stress management skills turn out to be really important for our relationship with our children, and also our children’s happiness and school success!

So too with our relationship with our children’s other parent, whether or not we are romantically involved, as well as our relationship with a romantic partner (if it isn’t the other parent). It’s true: little is more important than maintaining and improving the relationships we have with our partners and co-parents.  Like most parents, I try to model positive relationship skills for my for my children; all this great new science related to what happy couples do is helpful in knowing how to grow the love in my life.

Epstein and Fox’s study found another thing to be true: that parenting education can improve our parenting, and therefore our children’s outcomes.  Epstein writes: “Our data confirm that parents who have taken parenting classes produce better outcomes with their children than parents who lack such training and that more training leads to better outcomes.”

To that end, I have a class to offer you: sign up for my Rekindling Romance online class.  This class focuses on building a foundation for a passionate, long lasting, and joyful romance. Take the class in the comfort of your own home at your leisure.  For more information or to register, click here.

When my brother was getting married, I inundated him with the science of happily married couples. I wanted to give him a guide to not making the mistakes I had made. My “best woman” toast was very nearly a litany of advice.

It was a bit much for him. “Why would I listen to my DIVORCED sister when it comes to managing my marriage?” he once teased, trying (in vain) to shut me up.

Well, given what I’ve learned about happy marriages, I think there a few good reasons to listen to me—more on that in a minute—but first, I gotta be straight with you: I was not particularly good at being married the first time around. I picked a terrific person—my ex-husband is a great guy—who was totally wrong for me in just about all the ways that count.

I try to practice what I preach, and that means practicing some things that I definitely haven’t mastered yet (like using non-controlling language when I ask my kids to do things).

This is how people get good at things: They challenge themselves to the point of failure. Athletes do it. Entrepreneurs do it. Personally, I’m working on being a gold-medal parent and spouse. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t lost some races along the way. I made a few key mistakes in the ten years I was married to my children’s father, from which I’ve learned a lot.

But the main reason to take my relationship advice is that it really isn’t MY advice. Everything I write about is based not on my opinion, or even my experience, but on what scientific studies tell us. I’m still amazed by how insular academia is; there is so much great research out there that doesn’t make its way into real people’s lives—except for you, because you are reading this blog.

Here is one of my favorite things that researchers have noticed that happy couples do: They yell things like “WHOO-HOO!!!” when their partner shares good news.

There are two key pieces of advice to take away from that finding. The first is that when you have good news, share it, because it will make you happier. This is Savoring 101: Positive emotions are amplified when we share them with others.

The second piece of this advice concerns how to respond to good news from your partner, and it’s a key to making your relationship happier.

When your partner shares positive news with you, you don’t actually have to whoop or cheer, as my mother and I are prone to do, but you do need to respond enthusiastically. It isn’t enough to be positive and loving —but not particularly emotive—with your partner. Your response to good news needs to be active. Silent support doesn’t count in this realm.

Another bonus is that enthusiastic responses—such as a partner who says “I’m really happy for you!”—make people feel even better about the event or news that they are sharing, and it puts the sharer into a better mood.

Couples who make a big deal celebrating positive things in life score higher than others on intimacy and relationship satisfaction. They are also less likely to break up.

So pop open a bottle of champagne when that hard-earned promotion comes, take a walk together to celebrate a particularly wonderful day, jump up and down a little—and hug—when your partner reaches their exercise goal.

And what about when things go wrong and the news isn’t so good? Still, be very responsive. Make sure that your partner feels understood, that their abilities and opinions are valued, and that you’ve made them feel cared for.

I’ve learned that small tweaks in the way we behave with our partners can make all the difference in the world. What small tweaks have improved your relationship?  What types of things do you celebrate, and how do you do it?

References:

Gable, Shelly L., Gian C. Gonzaga, and Amy Strachman, 2006, “Will You Be There for Me When Things Go Right? Supportive Responses to Positive Event Disclosures”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91 (5), 904–917.

Gable, Shelly L., and Natalya C. Maisel, 2009, “The Paradox of Received Social Support: The Importance of Responsiveness” Psychological Science, 20(8), 928-932.

Parker-Pope, Tara, 2010, For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage, New York: Dutton.

Fish

One of the greatest things about our long-term romantic relationships is that they can provide comfort and predictability in this wild world we live in.

But let’s face it: Long-term relationships can get a little boring. Within nine to eighteen months, research suggests, 87 percent of couples lose that knee-quaking excitement they felt when they first fell madly in love. It isn’t that these relationships are bad, necessarily; they are just stale. Still edible, but not nearly as delectable as they were fresh out of the oven.

It isn’t just in our romantic relationships: In most aspects of our lives, we get used to the surroundings and circumstances that stay the same; researchers call this “hedonic adaptation.” What was once new and exciting—be it a lover, a new pair of shoes, a new neighborhood, or a new job—nearly always loses its luster over time.

The key word there, though, is nearly: 13 to 20 percent of people in long-term marriages successfully keep the fires of passion alive. (This doesn’t mean that 80 percent of couples are unhappy, it just means that their relationships aren’t particularly sexy or passionate.) And although we adapt to most things in life, we tend not to adapt to circumstances and situations that involve “variable, dynamic, and effortful engagement”—as when we take an engaging hike or class or while we are learning a new sport, according to researcher Ken Sheldon, who studies hedonic adaptation.

All this means that the very predictability that makes our long-term relationships comforting can also make us feel bored and uninterested in our spouses—which, of course, causes disconnection and even conflict. The destructive way to deal with relationship boredom is to seek excitement and novelty outside of the relationship—we all know people who’ve done that. Fortunately, there are better solutions to this common problem.

The antidote: Shake things up. Maybe a lot.

The good news is that its fun to stoke the fires of your relationship. The bad news is that you’ll have to give up some of the comfort (or if not that, the complacency) that has settled into your relationship. Here’s how:

• Make yourself vulnerable (just like you probably were on that first date!). Vulnerability can be uncomfortable because it involves, by definition, emotional exposure, uncertainty, and risk. (Remember: Vulnerability is not weakness!) Vulnerability allows trust and intimacy to develop and deepen.

A simple (if not always easy) way to make ourselves vulnerable in our relationships is to bare ourselves emotionally. What can you reveal to your long-term love that he or she doesn’t already know about you? Ask your beloved intimate questions to which you aren’t sure you know the answer (I carry a little rubber-banded pile of Table Topics for Couples in my purse for just this purpose).

Or do something mildly risky. Go on an adventure for your next vacation, to an unknown place that feels a little daunting. Visit a karaoke bar for your next date night, and actually sing. Try a new sport (where you risk feeling silly or uncoordinated). Do something thrilling, like zip-lining or bungee-jumping.

Vulnerability works in part because it creates a similar biochemistry and physiology as when you and your beloved were first falling in love. Researchers think it is likely that we tend to conflate the high-arousal induced by doing something risky with the high-arousal of intense attraction—the two states feel similar. Either way, an adrenaline rush is good for a relationship that is losing its luster.

• Upgrade your routines. If you’ve been reading this blog for long, you know that I’m a HUGE fan of productive routines and positive habits, and I advocate them in relationships as well, with one caveat: Your relationship habits routinely need to introduce variety, or you’ll start feeling entitled and bored. Making variety a habit—think that’s an oxymoron?

It isn’t. You may have a gratitude ritual at bedtime, where you tell your love something you appreciate about them before sleep; challenge yourself to come up with something new every day. Or perhaps you have a weekly date night—it might be cozy and comfortable to always go to the same Italian restaurant on the corner, but you’re gonna need to shake it up a little bit. Keep the date night, but always do something different. Vary the restaurant, vary the activity. Pretend you are trying to impress a new date.

Even if you aren’t up for the risk of an adventure or the intensity of emotional exposure, make sure there is a little excitement in your relationship routines. When researchers have couples create lists of things that they find exciting to do (maybe skiing, or trying a new restaurant, or going to a part of the city they rarely visit) couples who did something exciting together were more likely to agree with statements like “I feel happy when I am doing something to make my partner happy” and “I feel ‘tingling’ and ‘an increased heartbeat’ when I think of my partner.”

• Surprise your significant other (and maybe yourself at the same time). This is no more complicated than making an effort not to be so predictable. Throw them off their game a bit by blindfolding them on the way to your date-night. Similarly, a good friend and her husband trade off date-night planning, and don’t tell the other anything about the date. They might not end up doing anything outlandish, but the element of surprise makes the situation novel and exciting. Research shows that when ambiguity is introduced into something positive, the uncertainty in and of itself tends to increase our pleasure.

While you’re at it, look for unintended surprises in your significant other. You might be doing something you’ve done with her 1,001 times, but challenge yourself to find something new about the way that she is doing it. Our brains are pattern-finders, and they often see only what they expect to see. We find new people and situations more interesting and exciting because we don’t know yet what patterns we’ll find in their behavior (researchers call this the “lure of ambiguity”). When we find something new about a familiar person, we’ll tend to find him or her more interesting.

In romantic relationships, all of these strategies can (and should) be tried in the bedroom, of course. Lovemaking is one of the most significant ways most couples stay connected, but like the relationship itself, it can get stale over time. Shake things up in your sex life by making yourself vulnerable, taking risks, changing up your routines, and adding elements of surprise.

Finally, do these things as a way to deepen your connection and closeness in your relationship rather than to avoid conflict or rejection. When our relationship goals are positive (e.g., we want to have fun) rather than negative (e.g., we’re trying to avoid a fight), we tend to be much more satisfied with our relationships and to feel less lonely and insecure. And there’s nothing boring about that.

What do you do to add spark back into your relationship?

Interested in learning more about the science behind hedonic adaptation in relationships? I highly recommend Sonja Lubermirsky’s book The Myths of Happiness. There’s a whole chapter on taking your relationship from so-so to exciting!

I’m always struck by our willingness as mothers to take care of our children—and often their fathers and a host of others around us—before we take care of ourselves. Just off the heels of holiday hustle and bustle, parents at my kids’ school are planning and executing the spring fundraisers, gearing up for teacher appreciation day, and writing letters to address measures related to school funding. They are tired.

Calling run-down parents everywhere: let’s all take the advice of the airlines and put on our own oxygen masks first before helping those around us. I’m not saying don’t help those around you, but rather that should you become faint from lack of oxygen, you won’t be much good to anyone at all. Speaking for myself, I’ve found that a certain core of peace and centeredness is necessary before I can really get engaged in raising happy, compassionate, and altruistic children.

Here’s why:

1. If we get depressed, it may affect our children adversely. An extensive body of research has established a substantial link between depressed mothers and “negative outcomes” in their children, like acting out and other behavior problems. Parental depression actually seems to cause behavior problems in kids: it bothers kids to see their parents upset and unhappy, and they express this by behaving badly. Depressed parents also demonstrate poorer parenting skills, and so are less likely to correct bad behavior in constructive ways. Depressed mothers tend to be less sensitive and proactive in responding to their children’s needs, and are less likely to play with their children in emotionally positive ways. Kids with chronically depressed mothers—mothers whose feelings of sadness and despair persist—perform more poorly on school readiness tests, use less expressive language, and have poorer social skills. And it isn’t just depression: anxiety in mothers (something I’m prone to) is associated with increased anxiety in children.
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2. The reverse is also true: when we do what it takes to be happy ourselves, our children reap the benefits. Kids mimic their parents, especially when they are younger. Children imitate their parents’ emotions as early as 6 days old; it is one of the primary ways that they learn and grow. So if we model happiness—and all the skills that go with it—our kids are likely to behave in the same way. If I model a key happiness habit like kindness and generosity, for example, my daughters are more likely to become kind and generous. And because research shows that people’s emotions tend to converge—we become more similar emotionally the more we are together—it follows that the happier I am, the happier my children will be. Dacher Keltner and his colleagues ran an interesting series of experiments that show that people in close relationships become more similar to each other over time. The studies showed that the emotions and emotional reactions of friends and lovers actually become more alike over the course of a year (Anderson, Keltner & John, 2003). Another study, attempting to determine the degree to which shared genetics dictate similar emotional outlooks in parents and children, came up short: while they did find that happy parents are statistically more likely to have happy children, they couldn’t find a genetic component. Like roommates and lovers, the emotions of children and parents can be very similar, but not because they are cut from the same cloth, so to speak.
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3. Emotions in general are just plain contagious. A political scientist from the University of California, San Diego and a Harvard sociologist have recently documented that happiness is particularly contagious. Their conclusion, which is based on an analysis of people’s social connections over 20 years, is that our happiness depends on the happiness of those around us. Having happy friends, neighbors, and siblings that live in close proximity to you increases your odds of being happy—the positive emotions of one community member clearly spread to others (Fowler & Christakis, 2008).
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So it turns out that the first step in the science of raising happy kids is to actually be happy yourself. This week: tell us what YOU do to put your own oxygen mask on first. What makes you happy? Do your kids seem happier when you are happy?

Need a little help finding your own happiness? Check out my Love Your Life: Finding Happiness as a Parent online course to learn how and why to resist the urge to always put the needs of your children before your own.

Here’s how to stay strong through January (or get back on track if you’ve started to slip)

Did you make a resolution this year that will bring you more health and happiness? If so, good for you! Just the act of making a New Year’s resolution makes you 10 times more likely to bring about positive changes in your life.

But of course, to reap all the benefits of your resolution, you’ve got to follow through on it—and that’s always the trickiest part. Fortunately, research on resolutions offers some helpful tips for turning resolutions into reality. Here are some key insights from this research, divided into categories that reflect the range of post-New Year’s resolution states.

If you made New Year’s resolutions, but you haven’t acted on them yet…

1. Pare down your list of resolutions to just one easy thing. Science clearly suggests that you have a limited supply of willpower each day, and unless you are doing nothing other than keep your resolutions, you probably don’t have the psychological will you need to deal with your life AND keep up with a long list of lofty resolutions. Better to aim a little lower but then actually accomplish something. What one small thing do you want to do differently this year?

2. Be really specific about what you’d like to achieve. John Norcross, a University of Scranton researcher who has studied New Year’s resolutions for the last 30 years, says “If you can’t measure it, it’s not a very good resolution.” Maybe you resolved to get more exercise, and you haven’t really done much on this front. In that case, specify how you will get more exercise—e.g., resolve to take the stairs every morning and evening, or to go to the gym twice a week.

3. Pre-commit to your resolutions. Like Odysseus chaining himself to the mast while sailing past the Sirens, sometimes we need extreme measures to keep ourselves from temptation. Yale researchers created a website where you can make a contract with yourself to keep your resolution (stickK.com). I love this website, and recommend it highly. On stickK, you can even name a referee who will enforce financial penalties if you stray from your resolution—and if you do find such an enforcer, evidence suggests, you dramatically increase your odds of success.

If you had a strong start, but you are starting to falter…

1. Remember that there is a world of difference between lapse and relapse. A lapse is a small slip in behavior, and nearly everyone has them. Most people slip here and there a lot in January. A relapse is a full fall: You give up, you go back to your pre-resolution behavior.

If you’ve had a few slips, ask yourself why. What can you learn from your mistakes? Were you on vacation? (That’s always hard.) Do you not have a specific enough plan for how to fulfill your resolution? What temptation or situation should you avoid in the future? Remember: Lapses are to be expected. They are a part of the process. Don’t freak out or give up if you have a bad day here or there.

2. Beware the “what the hell effect.” It’s really important not to let a temporary lapse become something bigger than it is. Say you’ve sworn off sugar, but one morning you eat a pie for breakfast. You’re at risk for what researchers formally call the Abstinence Violation Effect (AVE), and jokingly call the “what the hell effect.” If you’ve already blown your diet today, why not go hog wild? What the hell—you can begin again tomorrow, right?

Wrong. The more damage you do during your binge, the more likely you are to slip again the next day, and the less confidence you’ll have in yourself that you can change. As soon as you notice a slip, try the following to avoid getting to that “what the hell” moment:

● Forgive yourself. Remind yourself that lapses are a part of the process, and that feeling guilty or bad about your behavior will not increase your future success. (In fact, self-criticism actually decreases future success.)

● Rededicate yourself to your resolution (now, in this instant, not tomorrow). Why do you want to make the changes that you do? How will you benefit? Do a little deep breathing and calm contemplation of your goals.

● Make a plan for the next time you will face a similar challenge. What will you do differently? How will you avoid the temptation in the future? What have you learned from your slip?

3. Step up your pre-commitments. See number 3 on the previous list—and figure out what you need to pre-commit to more fully!

If you are keeping your resolutions, and you’re looking strong…

Good for you! See your progress as evidence of your commitment, values, and routines—not necessarily as evidence that you’ve become a better person. Often when we are doing really well, we feel so good about ourselves we relax our vigilance and unknowingly set ourselves up for a slip. We can prevent a slip AND feel good about ourselves by consistently re-committing to our resolutions.

Most importantly, persist. This week is an important one for resolvers, according to resolution researcher John Norcross. If you can keep your resolution for the rest of January, you’ll be much more likely to end the year still keeping your resolution. Best of luck!

If you’re just getting around to starting your new habit, my online resolutions Cracking the Habit Code is available for free through the end of this month.   Hurry, after that we will only offer the premium version for purchase.

What did you resolve this year? How is it going?