I’ve come to the conclusion that our children feel like that must be happy 100 percent of the time. Recently, my daughter told me she felt unhappy and that she couldn’t put her finger on the reason. I explained that it’s normal to be unhappy at times and that it would be quite abnormal to be happy all the time. She looked at me as if I had said something Greek.

I went on to explain that we all feel unhappy at times, but it’s what we do with those feelings that predict the outcome of that day. I told her about the family I had to question with their dying child in the room. Happiness will be hard to find for a long time due to the loss of their child. She looked and said yeah you’re right. She revealed that she was unhappy because she felt like none of the guys she liked ever liked her back.

After watching the sorrow in her eyes, I insisted that she take out a list and write everyone’s name down for future reference. She looked at me and smiled. I then informed her it was the Brown curse to be a little different in middle school but to turn into a beautiful butterfly in high school, revealing that it happened to me and both of her sisters. In that moment my daughter was happy not for some nice object that I presented her with, but that I took the time to help her find a solution to her problem.

Listen to your children!

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