Happiness, emotional well‐being and mental health – what has children’s spirituality to offer?

Abstract

This article discusses the concepts of happiness, emotional well‐being and mental health in the light of recent work on children’s spirituality, to argue that such a consideration can help to avoid simplistic and individualistic views of each. Distinguishing between happiness as short‐term gratification and as longer‐term flourishing, the latter is presented as involving the search for meaning. Critiques of programmes designed to develop emotional well‐being are discussed. The reasons for patterns of emotional response are explored, including models of attachment and prior and present experience. The importance of adults being emotionally attuned to children to help build up the attributes associated with good mental health is emphasised. For happiness and emotional well‐being to be explicit ends in themselves, they would tend to promote introspection and a sense of vulnerability. They should be seen as by‐products of children flourishing as a result of sensitive relationships and the types of activities through which children’s resilience and sense of agency are reinforced.

Keywords:

• happiness
• emotional well‐being
• mental health
• children
• attachment
• spirituality

Introduction

Several recent, well‐publicised reports and books (e.g. Layard 2005; Palmer 2006; UNICEF 2007; Layard and Dunn 2009) have considered children’s happiness, emotional well‐being and mental health. A comparison with previous generations and/or other countries has led to widespread concern about these in children in developed countries. The need for adults to promote emotional intelligence and emotional literacy, based on the work of Goleman (1996), is often taken for granted. Associated with this is an emphasis on building resilience and encouraging creativity (Claxton 2002). Programmes and activities which are designed, and claim, to enhance these are widely used, such as SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) materials promoted by the government in England. This is also reflected in the plethora of self‐help books and courses to promote happiness and emotional well‐being, often linked to terms such as spirituality.

This article does not present empirical research or consider the methodological issues associated with assessing levels of children’s happiness, emotional well‐being and mental health. Rather, it draws on a discussion of what these entail, to argue that seeing these through the ‘lens’ of children’s spirituality can help to avoid an individualistic and introspective approach, and that for happiness and emotional well‐being to be seen as ends in themselves – to be explicitly searched for – is potentially both counterproductive and dangerous.

Happiness, emotional well‐being and mental health seem, almost by definition, good things. To suggest that they may not be worthwhile seems perverse. However, in the next three sections, I explore each in turn to show that they are conceptually more problematic than may appear on the surface. I then consider children’s spirituality, especially in how it relates to happiness, emotional well‐being and mental health. After discussing the roots of children’s emotional responses, and the importance of adults being attuned to these, I finish with a more practical discussion of the features of environments, to build on, and develop, the qualities and attributes associated with good mental health.

My own background is in the United Kingdom: professionally, in primary schools; and personally, outside any specific faith tradition. The discussion aims to be inclusive, with a focus on young children and schools but to have a wider applicability, for example for those within faith traditions and for parents or other voluntary groups.

Happiness

Noddings (2003) suggests that happiness should be an aim of education. Her assertion that children learn best when they are happy will resonate with parents and early‐years educators, especially. However, this does not mean that learning is always fun or undemanding. Indeed, meeting challenges and overcoming difficulties successfully is both implicit in learning and a source of happiness.

Happiness is an active state, not simply the absence of pain. Nor is it the same as pleasure. We may not know whether we are happy or not; and will in practice often be happy in some respects but not in others. For example, we may be happy to have achieved an immediate goal, but unhappy with how longer‐term relationships; or broadly content with our life, but not with the particular circumstances in which we find ourselves. So, self‐reporting of happiness is difficult for adults; and even more so for young children less capable of placing immediate sensations into a longer perspective. Moreover, as Mill (1909, 94) wrote, ‘ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so’. Csikszentmihalyi (1992, 2) cites Frankl’s view that, like success, ‘happiness … must ensue … as the unintended side‐effect of one’s personal dedication to a course greater than oneself’. The direct search for happiness may, paradoxically, make it more elusive.

Achieving happiness as one of the chief motivations for action goes back to the ancient Greeks, for whom the exercise of virtue was fundamentally linked to happiness. One of Aristotle’s conceptions of a life truly worth living was that it leads to eudaimonia, usually translated as happiness. However, as Grayling (2001, 72–3) points out, this loses the original ‘strong, active connotation of eudaimonia as well‐doing and well‐being, as living flourishingly’. This is closely associated with conducting oneself appropriately in a social context. Indeed, the Greeks emphasised that happiness should be independent of health, wealth or the ups and downs of everyday life. Layard (2005) argues persuasively that, once an optimum level has been reached, additional wealth does not lead to greater happiness. This depends on other, less tangible things, such as experiences and relationships.

The Greeks saw eudaimonia as a sustained, rather than episodic, state, making an important distinction between immediate and long‐term happiness. The former is more like gratification, or feeling good, which may result from a range of stimuli, chemical, social or personal, possibly not linked to, or even militating against, longer‐term flourishing. I shall argue that teachers and parents should be concerned with enabling children to develop a longer‐term happiness in the sense of flourishing, with the pursuit of short‐term pleasure often a barrier to this.

Csikszentmihalyi (1992) associates happiness with ‘flow’ based on energized focus, full involvement, and success. He writes of optimal experience as something which an individual can make happen and is likely to lead to happiness, based on how events are interpreted rather than the events themselves. He presents (2) happiness as a ‘condition to be prepared for, cultivated and defended privately by each person’. Csikszentmihalyi is right to emphasise how happiness is linked to order and meaning, with this based on ultimate goals and intentionality. However, he underrates the extent to which happiness is affected by external events and overemphasises the role of conscious action. In Williams’ (2000, 102) words, ‘a doctrine of the will’s power and resourcefulness in constructing and maintaining identities … cannot but distort and obscure a whole range of facts about people’s grossly unequal access to the various commodities on offer for building identities’. While poverty, hunger or abuse can be dealt with consciously, for example by those with strong external structures of meaning such as religious faith, they make happiness much less likely. One may make sense of being burgled, or attacked, maybe even left without the basic necessities of life, but these things do not make one happy.

Emotional well‐being

Goleman (1996) is the most popular and influential author to promote emotional intelligence, emotional literacy and emotional well‐being. Such terms are left deliberately vague, but are usually associated with feeling good about oneself, self‐esteem, being aware of one’s own and other people’s emotions and, in particular, being able to regulate one’s own. These are often encouraged through explicit programmes and activities, an approach which Ecclestone and Hayes (2008) call therapeutic education and regard as profoundly dangerous. They do not define therapeutic education, but their key argument, in this context, is that educators have become too concerned with emotional well‐being, as opposed to critical engagement with knowledge. This emphasises feelings over knowledge, creating a belief that everyone is vulnerable and needs support, rather than challenge. They write, ‘in primary schools, the development of emotional literacy and the “skills” associated with emotional well‐being begins children’s preoccupation with themselves, introduces the idea that life makes us vulnerable and offer prescriptive rituals, scripts and appropriate ways of behaving emotionally’ (2008, 145). By promoting particular types of response, often on the basis of simplistic notions of well‐being, adults discourage children from engaging with the complexity and ambiguity of emotional responses and how these are affected by the child’s specific circumstances.

Ecclestone and Hayes see the talk of ‘emotional intelligence’ which has resulted in programmes and activities such as circle time and more recently, in the United Kingdom, the SEAL materials, as encouraging children to think that feeling good is essential to well‐being and not equipping them to learn to cope with difficulty. However, by associating emotional intelligence so closely with the activities designed to promote it, Ecclestone and Hayes do not distinguish between what is meant by emotional well‐being and the means designed to enable this. As a result, in criticising the activities, they understate the importance of emotional well‐being, and what this entails, rather than considering which elements of it are valuable and which not.

The current focus on emotional well‐being is particularly strong in rich countries and communities where external circumstances do not result in the main focus being on survival. While many children have difficult, sometimes abusive, experiences, very few have to face difficulties comparable either to the daily struggle of those in less‐developed countries, involving hunger, disease and exploitation, or to those who are victims of war or natural disasters, many of whom show astonishing resilience – and are so taken up with coping that there is little or no time to be concerned with emotional well‐being.

Mental health

Despite the growing interest in children’s mental health, a lack of conceptual clarity about what this involves means that adults often become either over‐protective or have unrealistic expectations. I wish to argue for an active view which both develops conscious mechanisms and individual agency and takes account of the immediate and wider context in which children grow up. An analogy with physical health may be useful. First, health is much more than the absence of illness, but rather implies a state in which the individual is less likely to succumb to illness and adversity and more likely to recover quickly and effectively. Just as physically healthy people build up immunity or fitness to deal with physical threats, mentally healthy people are better prepared, and able to, cope with adversity. Protective physical mechanisms are built, or strengthened, by the right level of challenge and practice, for example through immunisation or training. Similar considerations apply to mental health, in relation to external support and practice to help build up mechanisms to protect oneself. Second, just as physical health fluctuates, so does mental health. In particular, both are strongly influenced by environmental factors. Just as one would not expose a child to undue risk of infection or extremes of discomfort, adults rightly wish to protect children from emotional abuse and trauma. However, while protecting those who are vulnerable is important, children need to maintain their sense of being in control. Third, perceptions of health often affect how healthy one is. An obsession with symptoms may help to create the sense of being unwell. Healthy responses tend to contribute to better health. Fourth, good physical health requires qualities and attributes which can minimise the effects of both genetic and environmental influences – with the lack of these exacerbating their effect.

The Mental Health Foundation (2001, 9) highlights the following attributes in children’s mental health:

•	self‐esteem;
•	physical, emotional, social and spiritual growth;
•	resilience;
•	the ability to make good personal relationships;
•	a sense of right and wrong;
•	the motivation to face setbacks and learn from them;
•	a sense of belonging;
•	a belief in their ability to cope;
•	a repertoire of problem‐solving approaches.

While adults have a role in protecting children from what may really harm them, children must be given the chance, and enabled, to develop these attributes. While their relative importance may be debated, one common theme is that of agency. For example, a strong sense of self, often within the context of feeling part of a family or a group, helps children believe that they can overcome adversity. More practically, if children, when upset, seek adult support as the first (or only) step, rather than one level of a range of strategies, their sense of agency – and the sense that having coped previously they can do so again – will not develop. Mental health is undermined by a sense of helplessness.

I am not arguing that adults should not want or enable children’s happiness or emotional well‐being; but rather that longer term happiness, and flourishing, is best achieved by promoting a robust sense of mental health, based on agency. By making happiness, especially immediate pleasure, an end in itself, adults may make longer‐term happiness harder to achieve. By concentrating on emotional well‐being, adults may create a sense of vulnerability. And by focusing too much on possible problems, adults may prevent children from learning to cope with adversity on their own.

How does spirituality relate to happiness, emotional well‐being and mental health?

In this section, I consider what light children’s spirituality may shed on the discussion so far. Since the lack of a universally agreed definition of spirituality is problematic, I approach this by looking at some common features, especially as they relate to happiness, emotional well‐being and mental health.

The roots of spirituality lie within religious traditions. Carr (1994, 1995, 1996) argues that the term only has meaning when this link is maintained. Lambourn (1996) suggests that ‘spiritual’ is an empty category, meaningless when cut off from its roots. However, authors focusing on younger children such as Hay with Nye (1998), Eaude (2005) and Hyde (2008) present spirituality as a universal trait. Whether, or not, it may be nurtured best within religious traditions, there is no necessary link. Wright (2000, 96), referring to schools, rightly call for ‘a pedagogy capable of addressing both the universality of humanity’s spiritual aspirations and the actuality of distinct spiritual traditions’.

Wright (2000, 75–7) warns against an inclusive understanding of spirituality, if this implies a rejection of tradition, an abandonment of critical reflection, and a concentration on ‘inner’ emotional experience, or what he calls (76) ‘the possibility of a spiritual emotivism detached from critical reflection’. He, and others such as Carr and Lambourn, dismiss a view of spirituality based on individualism and concern with oneself where one can choose what makes one feel good and call it spirituality.

Hyde’s (2008) subtitle, ‘searching for meaning and connectedness’, captures three central elements of the discourse on children’s spirituality. First, there is the sense of search, of trying to make sense of existential questions – such as Who am I?, Where do I fit in?, Why am I here? – related to identity, place and purpose. This involves the creation of a coherent narrative, a process of making meaning. This is, always, simultaneously individual and social. In Macintyre’s words (1999, 221) ‘the story of my life is always embedded in the story of those communities from which I derive my identity. I am born with a past; and to try to cut myself off from that past, in the individualistic mode, is to deform my present relationships. The possession of an historical identity and the possession of a social identity coincide’. So, such a narrative is always constructed within a culture and a tradition. While cultures and traditions tend to become static and provide answers rather than to keep open possibilities, such existential questions are inherently mysterious, so that answers must be provisional, open to further and constant revisiting.

The second feature of Hyde’s subtitle highlights that this search is for meaning, resonating with Csikszentmihalyi’s view. John Hull, thinking about the process of his going blind, wrote ‘The most important thing in life is not happiness but meaning. Happiness is the product of chains of accident which tend towards our well‐being. Blindness does not make me happy. I did not choose it, nor was it inflicted upon me. Nevertheless, as an accidental event it could become meaningful’ (Hull 2001, 171). Since Hull writes from a position of religious faith, he relates his thinking to God’s action. Such questions are difficult, whatever one’s beliefs. However, one of Hull’s key insights is that meaning is always conferred retrospectively. We understand events, if at all, only with hindsight. So meaning is constructed in response to, and to make sense of, experience, whether or not within a specific, explicit framework such as that of religious faith. Meaning‐making may help to make one happy, but it is more important to search for meaning than for happiness.

The search for meaning necessarily involves trying to make sense of difficult issues, such as suffering, pain and loss (see Rowling [1996] and Eaude [2005]). This is one aspect of children’s spirituality which adults find difficult because of a wish to protect children from these and to provide definitive and comforting answers. However, all children are faced with what is hard to comprehend, and will continue to be so throughout life. Such worries may vary from the apparently slight, such as the loss of a toy, or the frustration of not getting one’s own way, to, for many children, more severe concerns, such as those about parental arguments or the reality of separation from those whom one loves. But children have to try to make sense of these, as adults do. In trying to protect them, we as adults are often protecting ourselves. And in failing to help children recognise that some questions do not have easy or definitive answers, we may discourage them from continuing to ask such questions.

The third aspect of Hyde’s subtitle is connectedness. Hay with Nye (1998) present what they call ‘relational consciousness’ as central to children’s spirituality. They break this into four elements:

•	awareness of self;
•	awareness of others;
•	awareness of the environment; and
•	(for some people) awareness of a Transcendent Other.

This is closely linked to an emerging sense of identity, with young children often centred on their own needs and learning over time how they fit into a ‘bigger picture’. It involves children recognising both their independence and interdependence, reflecting the importance attached by many religious traditions of being less obsessed with oneself, and on material possessions. Gaining, or regaining, a sense of perspective is one reason why experiences of ‘awe and wonder’ are often associated with spirituality. However, while spirituality is inherently mysterious, involved with what is uncertain, ambiguous and paradoxical, it is not just about extra‐ordinary or exotic experience. As Noddings (2003, 168) suggests, ‘enhanced awareness of certain features of everyday life can contribute significantly to spiritual life and to happiness’. Spirituality is often – and most obviously for young children – manifested, and enhanced, within everyday experience (Eaude 2005). The way in which young children, although often very centred on themselves, exhibit wonderful qualities and attributes – such as openness, curiosity and an ability to ‘live in the moment’ – which adults often lose in themselves, or suppress in others, makes the appropriateness of applying the idea of development to spirituality doubtful, as discussed in Priestley (2000, 2001).

This section has presented spirituality as based on a search for meaning and connectedness, trying to make sense of, rather than deny, what is difficult and painful. Many would see this as involving incorporation into a religious tradition where the framework of meaning is provided by a belief in God. Others would not. However, this search is both individual and dependent on belonging to something larger than oneself, recalling Hay with Nye’s (1998) elements of relational consciousness. So it is hampered by obsession with the self and what is external and transient and enhanced by gaining a sense of perspective beyond one’s immediate concerns. Flourishing entails a state which is more active, relational and sustained than an individual, introspective response to ‘feel‐good’ activities.

What are the early influences on emotional responses?

This section considers how very young children learn to process emotion and the extent to which this affects later patterns of response, affecting at a deep level how they interpret experience and their response to anxiety.

Within psychology, attachment theory has been very widely used to help explain, in part, patterns of emotional response and behaviour, especially in young children; but this has been used much less in education. One reason may be a suspicion of theory, as such. Second, an emphasis on conscious control and regulating one’s own behaviour means that underlying explanatory theories may be seen as an excuse. Third, ‘attachment behaviour’ is usually associated primarily with very young children and/or vulnerable children. However, understanding models of attachment is important in helping adults interpret children’s responses and behaviour and respond appropriately.

Put simply, attachment theory argues that internal working models are learnt during early infancy through the baby’s relationship with the prime carer, usually the mother. These are the basis of how infants learn to act and interact with other people and rooted in relationships and reciprocity. Models of attachment may be secure or insecure, with the latter usually divided into avoidant, anxious (or resistant) and disorganised. Those with secure models of attachment can cope better with adversity because they can access a ‘secure base’. This both provides emotional support and enables them to be more adventurous and take more risks. Infants with avoidant models explore but take little notice of their mother and are not worried either at her departure or her return, sometimes being more sociable with a stranger. Having learned not to rely on their mother in seeking comfort, they are less prone to express their emotions. Those with anxious models are reluctant to explore in their mother’s presence and distressed when she leaves. Reunions lead to them trying to make contact but resisting her moves to comfort them, whether reacting angrily or passively. A small number of children with insecure attachments fit neither of these two categories, showing both avoidant and anxious responses. Known as ‘disorganised’, these demonstrate paradoxical behaviour without an obvious explanation. Such children cannot maintain a consistent strategy, for example crying loudly but avoiding the mother’s comfort, or approaching her without being able to seek comfort and support. They are sometimes thought to have strategies to seek the security they crave but be unable to implement them, having learned that these do not work predictably.

Marris (1991, 88) suggests that ‘attachment … is at once the primary relationship through which personality develops and the relationship through which we create sense out of order’. However, models of attachment influence, rather than determine, how emotion is processed, since other factors such as temperament, prior experience, and the immediate environment affect this. The extent to which they influence emotional responses and behaviour, especially as conscious mechanisms become more influential in later childhood, remains a matter of debate (see Goldberg 2000 for a useful analysis of attachment theory, and pp. 34–5 on this point). They are, perhaps, best seen as a propensity to respond in particular ways, which can be regulated, or overridden, except at times of extreme anxiety.

All children develop conscious mechanisms to regulate emotion, by having these modelled, by practising these and by having success reinforced. This helps them more easily to access a secure base which enables the risk and challenge implicit in developing the attributes associated with mental health. Such conscious mechanisms help to regulate emotional responses, but a high level of anxiety disables these. When vulnerable, children require more support, and their anxiety needs to be contained if conscious mechanisms to regulate emotion are to work. However, all children are vulnerable at times, and many especially so, because of external circumstances. This is especially important for those with insecure models of attachment. As Grossman and Grossman (1991, 108) suggest ‘under pressure or stress insecure attachment strategies may turn out to make a person more vulnerable in terms of psychological health’. So adults must encourage mechanisms which enable the conscious regulation of emotion, but recognise how anxiety can stop these from working, to support children rather than always to expect them to rely on conscious mechanisms.

What are the external influences on happiness, emotional well‐being and mental health?

While attachment theory can help explain how children respond differently to similar situations, it is important to recognise that the experiences they have undergone and their current circumstances also affect this. So, for example, an uncaring or abusive home, the experience of racism or bullying, or physical discomfort because of hunger or pain all affect happiness and well‐being. While obvious, this is easily forgotten where adults expect children to make conscious choices. This is not to excuse certain types of behaviour but to highlight that many children, especially those insecure models of attachment, cannot exercise choice appropriately unless their anxiety is contained.

One feature of recent discussions on children’s happiness and well‐being is that aspects of the social and cultural context militate against them. For example, Palmer (2006), while recognising that technological and cultural changes have, for the most part, improved the lifestyle of people in the developed world, sees this as producing side‐effects which may be especially damaging for children. Hull (1996) relates the dominant value of modern, Western society, based on money and consumption, to an individualistic, privatised – and consequently depoliticised – view of spirituality. Brands and external features become more important than intrinsic qualities. So trends such as the rise of consumerism, the cult of celebrity, and the sexualisation of childhood are associated with a belief that happiness can be instant and results from possession. Through very attractive and subtly presented messages, children are encouraged and expected to buy (literally) into the latest fashion or brand, messages constantly reinforced by advertising, the media and, in particular, the urge to belong within a peer group. This resonates with Hyde’s (2008) identification of two factors which inhibit children’s spirituality: what he calls material pursuit and trivialization. I would add the lack of space in a busy world, the pursuit of status and power and the belief in individual autonomy, but this area would merit further research.

We should not underestimate how powerful these messages are. However, neither should we be messengers of doom. Most aspects of children’s lives are much better than a hundred years ago or in less‐developed parts of the world. But children need encouragement to be critical of the prevalent belief that what is external and transient is the prime source of happiness and well‐being; a view both stemming from and reinforcing an obsession with the self, possession and short‐term gratification. Intimate relationships, good action, and the opportunity to work with and serve others is likely to lead to flourishing, linking happiness with virtue, much as the Greeks did. Trusted adults, notably parents and teachers, can be particularly influential in promoting opportunities for, and for understanding, this. The next section discusses how.

How can adults nurture children’s happiness, emotional well‐being and mental health?

This section suggests that how adults respond to children’s expressed needs, and especially how they help children use, and develop, the attributes of mental health set out by the Mental Health Foundation (2001), cited above, is more important than specific programmes to promote this. This reflects Jackson, Boostrom and Hansen’s (1993) insight, in looking at the moral life of schools, that the most important influences on moral education are often those least easy to see. Gestures, responses, symbols, the physical environment all manifest, and contribute to, the expectations which adults have of children, and which help to shape their identity. For example, a smile or a raised eyebrow may pass on a message more subtly, or less confrontationally, than a direct comment. The work displayed, the small rituals of classroom life, the arrangement of furniture all help to create an atmosphere where children are made to feel secure (or otherwise), where they belong (or not), and to what extent they are expected to be passive or active.

This is not to say that programmes to develop emotional intelligence may not be useful. However, there is a danger of these becoming one‐size‐fits‐all solutions, with particular types of responses expected. As Ecclestone and Hayes (2008) suggest, this may assume or create a sense of emotional vulnerability and discourage a sense of agency and resilience. Moreover, an expectation that children should say that they are happy, even when they are not, or do not know how they feel, restricts their ability to learn to process more complex and difficult emotions. It is how such programmes are used that matters more than the materials themselves.

The attributes associated with good mental health are often undermined by adults, sometimes with the best of intentions. For instance, most children can show amazing resilience if they are not overprotected; and believe in their own ability to cope if the task is emotionally not too daunting. So, in building up children’s ‘emotional muscles’, to adapt Claxton’s (1999) term, a balance has to be struck between overprotecting children and ignoring their emotional needs. For example, enhanced self‐esteem follows less from constant praise than from children learning for themselves that they can cope and succeed. While adults can guide children in the types of relationship which they make, they exercise only a limited amount of control. They can support, encourage, and advise on how to overcome difficulties – and the extent and the form that this takes will vary according to the child’s age and needs – but children need to practise what supports and promotes their mental health for themselves. Providing the necessary balance of haven and challenge, structure and freedom, is what makes parenting and teaching so hard.

For adults to judge this balance depends, in part, on emotional attunement. This involves understanding how another person processes emotion, recognising his or her emotional state and responding accordingly. For example, a child with a secure model of attachment needs opportunities and encouragement to explore and to take risks. An anxious child may require more reassurance, but also to learn gradually how to approach adversity with lower levels of support. And more definite boundaries will be necessary if a child with a disorganised model of attachment is not to be overwhelmed. Attunement requires a recognition of the confusion, or the hurt, or the strengths that children bring, to provide what Kimes Myers (1997, 63) calls ‘hospitable space’, ‘in which old and new experiences are accepted, dealt with and transcended’. Sometimes, this will entail space for silence and reflection, and at others conversation and mutuality. However, Kimes Myers emphasises that adults’ own emotional responses and children’s are linked, in a process she describes as ‘cog‐wheeling’. She cites (8) Erikson’s words, ‘when we engage in relationships with young children … the child within us also has a developing edge’. Teachers and parents will recognise how some children, and some types of response, can provoke one’s anger. So, emotional attunement is not a soft option, especially with some children, but is essential if adults are to recognise and respond to children’s emotional states.

How children engage in activities is more important than the activities themselves. Think for example of reading, which can help open up new worlds; or of science, which can engage a child’s curiosity and empathy for nature. Like any subject, they can become tedious and mechanistic, or a source of enormous pleasure. However, some activities provide especially good opportunities. The chance to play is one. In Winnicott’s words (1980, 63) ‘it is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality. It is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self’. The search for meaning is dynamic and creative. As explored further in Eaude (2009), creativity requires the opportunity to experiment, to change and, at times, to fail, without the consequences being too severe. A playful and creative approach is possible in any subject area, at any age. However, the opportunities to adopt and experiment with different identities makes drama an especially good medium, and those within the arts are greater, and certainly more obvious, than in some other areas.

For children to hear stories not only develops speaking and listening skills, but helps to cultivate what Coles (1989) calls ‘the moral imagination’. The open‐endeness of a story helps the hearer to place his or herself within a wider narrative, and so to explore identity and meaning. Hearing stories helps children to cope with mystery and ambiguity. Stories provide an engaging and unthreatening route into reflection. Moreover, they help children become part of a bigger group and a longer tradition, countering the tendency to see themselves only as individuals.

One paradox is that these sorts of activity are quite normal, make children happy, and help them to learn; yet explicit promotion of happiness and emotional well‐being often leads to a superficial view of what this consists of, especially if children are expected to respond in particular ways. Adults are most likely to inhibit children from constructing their own narrative when they coerce, or close off possibilities. So, for children to flourish, a range of opportunities is required: individual, as well as social; adult‐initiated, as well as self‐initiated; intellectually and emotionally challenging, as well as reinforcing.

Conclusion

This article has argued that an explicit focus on children’s emotional well‐being, happiness and mental health may be counterproductive. These are best seen as by‐products of other activities, rather than as ends in themselves, to avoid a tendency towards introspection. The discourse on spirituality emphasises the search for meaning and connectedness, and less concern with oneself. This does not involve turning inwards or avoiding difficulty but meeting, and making sense of, challenges. This leads towards a view of happiness in the sense of flourishing, rather than the immediate gratification associated with what is external and transient. Emotional well‐being does not just involve feeling good, being happy, or having fun.

An appropriate environment can help children to build up, and draw on, the attributes which contribute to a robust state of mental health, especially a sense of agency and resilience to cope with adversity. Such an environment involves adults who are attuned and responsive to children’s emotional states, especially those with high levels of anxiety. This depends on a recognition of the influences, including models of attachment, on how individual children process emotion. Both the pressures of society – often very powerful and emphasising consumerism and individual consumption – and the prior experience and current situation in which children live influence this. However, adults must not create or encourage a sense of vulnerability. So, a balance has to be struck between protecting children and providing them with the challenges implicit in learning. For children to flourish requires the chance to explore, to search, and to reflect. Paradoxically, many of the activities which promote this are what children most enjoy, so that happiness and well‐being flow from these, rather than being sought directly or provided by adults.

Notes on contributor

Tony Eaude was the head teacher of a first school in Oxford, UK, and now works as an independent research consultant, with a particular interest in young children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.