Joy is great for families. It is the more spontaneous cousin to happiness. Joy is about moments of fun, connection, and appreciation that can happen almost anytime and any where, even without the rest of life being "sorted out."
Cultivating joy as a family is important – it is a glue of good feeling and shared memories that keeps your bonds strong. As we get into the summer, think about ways to be joyful with your kiddos.
“A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.” - Mary Poppins
Happiness has gotten a lot of ink in recent years. And while we can all appreciate the desire to be happy, in fact the research tells us that happiness is more of a byproduct of other things – such as developing strong relationships, living in line with your authenticity, and making progress toward goals that are meaningful to you – than an end to pursue in itself.
But that doesn't mean that we can't pursue good feelings to make life feel sweeter. For this, joy is just the thing. Whereas happiness is an appraisal of how well things are going overall, joy is an intense, current feeling of pleasure. Something beautiful catches your eye, or you feel the pleasure of a cuddle with your child. These experiences are visceral and can instantly improve your mood and may even help to lengthen your lifespan. They promote the release of dopamine, which is also known as the “feel good” neurotransmitter. Along with gratitude, tuning in to joy is one of those practices that you can decide to do more often, for a lovely little mood boost.
Joy experienced with your family is even better than joy experienced alone, for several reasons:
When we share heightened emotional experiences with others, we feel them even more strongly.
When we can savor joyful moments together, we create special memories that we can return to again and again.
Joy puts us into a more productive brain state, in which we're able to think better, see our family members in a more positive light, be more flexible, and overcome small bumps in the road.
Experiencing joy together regularly creates a narrative among family members that "we are a happy family."
Seeing parents take joy in them makes kids see themselves as lovable and valuable.
With your child, joy is most likely to be experienced during a state of what psychologists call "intersubjectivity". This means that there is no hierarchy between parent and child, and you enter together into a state of wonder, play, affection, exploration, or creativity.
Because joy is so beneficial it's worth thinking about the things that may keep you from seeking joy or allowing it in. Some common joy killers are:
Negativity bias—the tendency for the human brain to see the worst in our circumstances and environment.
Temperament can also affect the ability to notice and lean into joy. And different people will find different things joyful, and express that joy in different ways.
What Brené Brown calls "foreboding joy" – the belief that if things are too good, the other shoe will drop.
Waiting for happiness – many of us harbor a belief that we "cannot be happy until" X, Y, or Z happens. Ironically, this mindset of seeking happiness in the future can make us dismiss joy we might feel in the present.
Joy doesn’t have to be fleeting or something you experience only by luck now and then. You and your kids can practice joy and cultivate it in your family.
