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This Month's Article |
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Happiness and Raising a Child with Hemophilia By Patrick Brogan Happiness. Bobby McFerrin said, “Don’t worry, be happy.” The Partridge Family wanted us to “Come on, get happy.” So what about it? Do we need to be happy? Is it that important? How does happiness affect how we raise our kids, especially those with hemophilia? Ask parents what they wish for their kids when they grow up and the number one response will be “to be happy.” Parents of kids with bleeding disorders that have taken the Parents Empowering Parents Program (PEP) are no exception. Having attended PEP and while helping facilitate the program, many times I’ve observed the issue of happiness as an undercurrent flowing throughout. When working on the Family Blueprint in Session Three, an almost universal goal for our children when they grow up is to be happy. Session Seven teaches about the importance of a child’s self esteem, and happiness is an essential component of good self esteem. Radio talk show host and author, Dennis Prager tells his audiences that we have, “a moral obligation to be happy.” Prager feels so strongly about the importance of happiness that he wrote a book on the subject, Happiness is a Serious Problem, A Human Nature Repair Manual and dedicates an hour a week on his radio show, called the “Happiness Hour,” to the subject. Prager says happy people make the world a better place. If that is true for the world in the macro, imagine how important it is for the family unit in the micro. In Session Five of PEP, we examine our worldview. We delve into the causes of how we gained our perspective, how we believe what we believe and how we came to be the people we are. Much of our worldview was shaped by our parents and how we were raised. Many of our attitudes and beliefs were learned from our parents or were a reaction to them. In Happiness is a Serious Problem, Prager writes, “Parents are flawed human beings who are given a role that more approximates that of God than of mere mortals. No totalitarian tyrant has as much control over his subjects as even the kindest parents has over their young children.” So imagine how a child’s worldview is shaped by an unhappy parent. As parents we all have bad days. Stresses at work, long commutes, financial worries, you name it. They all pile on us throughout the day or week and we bring it home and unload on the ones we love the most. We may yell and snap verbally or worse, or rather shut everyone out and recede sullenly into solitude. If we’re lucky those days and episodes are few and far between. But oftentimes they’re not. We’re unhappy. And what we’re modeling for our kids isn’t solution-oriented problem solving, but rather a defeatist approach that when faced with life’s difficulties we give up and become unhappy. What kind of worldview is formed when a child is exposed to chronic unhappiness, depression or anger? How much better is it for children to be surrounded by happiness especially our kids with bleeding disorders? They already have a built-in excuse to be unhappy with their lot in life. It’s our job as parents to steer them away from such attitudes and focus on all the other positives of their lives. And we can do that by modeling happiness ourselves. Growing up there was a time when my father was laid off and was out of work for some time. Money was tight and the prospect for a job uncertain. There were fears, doubts and a genuine concern about providing for our family, but what I felt at home was happiness. My parents didn’t let the employment concerns intrude upon their overall happiness, their happiness with each other or the happiness of their family. Whether by design, or by their innate natures, my parents maintained every semblance of normalcy in very uncertain times. Can we be happy 100% of the time? Undoubtedly, no. But that doesn’t mean that we should let the bad episodes ruin our happiness and the happiness of those around us. So how do we get happy? First and foremost happiness is not easy, it takes work. Prager writes, “Everything worthwhile in life is attained through hard work. Happiness is no exception.” What else? There are as many paths to happiness as there are people in the world, but here are a couple of suggestions. Don’t make happiness your primary pursuit. We’ve all known people that are always after the next big thing, the next big thrill, the next “high” all in the pursuit of happiness. But they’re not happy, and what enjoyment they get from their thrills is fleeting. Like the high from a drug, it’s short-lived, leaving the person empty and wanting more. “Happiness is only achievable when it is a by-product of something else, “Prager writes in Happiness. He says to find pursuits and interests that are meaningful and about which you can be passionate. Hobbies, vocations, charity work and raising kids are all pursuits we can be passionate about. It is in doing these meaningful things that we find happiness. Gaining a proper perspective aids happiness. Appreciate what you have and the goodness around you. Too often we get caught up in what we don’t have while comparing ourselves to others. But this is self-defeating. We’ll always find someone with something more or something better and always come up short. When the truth is, those people we think are happier because they have more, probably aren’t happy at all. “If all of us realized that the people with whom we negatively compare our happiness are plagued by pains and demons of which we know little or nothing,” Prager writes, “we would stop comparing ourselves with others’.” Finally, don’t forget the little things. I’m convinced that besides giving bodies and minds necessary rest, God gave us sleep to keep us from doing serious harm to our kids. No matter how bad a day or how awful my boys behaved that day, the sight of their sleeping forms melts all that other “stuff” away and reminds me of how much I love them and how important they are to me. So whether it’s little sleeping bodies or your favorite plant in bloom, it doesn’t have to be grand things that keep us happy, but small dear things that are all around us. It’s not always easy but don’t worry, come on, get happy. Patrick Brogan lives in Houston with his wife Allison Pohl. They have two boys; Jack, 8, has severe hemophilia A, and Carrick, 5.
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