Promoting happiness and well being in children

Psychologist & Author David Palmiter, PhD, shares advice for parents on the best ways to promote happiness and well being in your child's life
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Promoting happiness and well being in children

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More and more parents are turning to psychology for more than just resolving pain but how do I promote happiness. How do i promote a sense of meaning in life not only for myself but for my kid. That's why in every chapter of my book, Working Parents Thriving Families, I end with an exercise from positive psychology. Very practical specific. My favorite of them is a gratitude letter. This can be done individually or even more favorably in my mind as a family. Pick one person a week. Everybody writes a hand-written letter of about three hundred words. It might be less for younger kids. They might do more pictures to bring our kids but everybody writes that letter. Sit that person down and everybody reads their letters. I bet you 98% of families is going to be a lot of crying going on and our research suggests that joy is enhanced for the next three weeks, in an individual's life and in the family's life. Its a very powerful exercise. It can be done individually. I can find someone with whom I have unexpressed gratitude, recent or ancient. Write a hand-written letter of three hundred words, read it to them. I think that people that get these letters, if there is a fire in their home, God forbid, its one of the first things they'll grab before they leave

Psychologist & Author David Palmiter, PhD, shares advice for parents on the best ways to promote happiness and well being in your child's life

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David Palmiter, PhD, ABPP

Psychologist & Author

Dr. David Palmiter is a professor of Psychology and Counseling at Marywood University. He is a practicing and board-certified clinical psychologist, a past president of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the author of over three dozen publications, including two books on promoting resilience in youth, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (true of < 6% of psychologists), the American Academy of Clinical Psychology and the Pennsylvania Psychological Association in youth. He has also given hundreds of workshops on family issues for organizations such as The Navy SEAL Foundation, The Master Therapist Series at the University of Connecticut, The American Psychological Association and the McGraw-Hill Financial Group and completed hundreds of media projects for outlets such as CNN, The New York Times, US News and World Report and the Wall Street Journal. David is also a dad of three (two studying at Cornell University and one still in high school) and husband of 27 years to Dr. Lia Richards-Palmiter. A central aspect of his professional mission is to put air under the wings of parents as they try to raise happy and resilient children and teens.

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