Alright, moms and dads. It’s time for a family meeting.
Repeat after me: “Happiness equals better grades.”
That’s right. Research coming out of Harvard University shows that there is a correlation between your child’s happiness level and their grades.
To complete this study, researchers collected data on happiness and grades from 94% of the student body at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School near Washington, D.C. The test group included students at elementary, middle, and high school levels.
The students were presented with developmentally-appropriate surveys to measure their happiness as it related to feedback from teachers and other students at the school.
The results? On average, students who reported being happier, had higher grades. There was a statistically significant link between happiness and students’ GPAs, a link which spanned students from elementary through high school.
So how can you, as parents, help your children achieve a level of happiness that is reflected in their grades?
Christina Hinton and Lauren Schiller are the researchers who performed the Harvard happiness study. They found that, at the heart of each student’s happiness, was a network of supportive relationships.
Everything from the quality of your child’s relationship with their teachers, all the way to how they interact with their peers, can help to predict their happiness.
If your child is up for a challenge and serious about improving their grades, then their job this week should be to make a new friend and to seriously analyze their relationships with their peers. Even more importantly, have your child sit back and think about their attitude towards other people. Are they being a good friend, too? What about a good student?
Now…are you as a parent up for a challenge? Then your job this week is to look for places that are positive and structured, with good adult role models and children that share similar goals as your child does. Once you find that place, get your child involved with them! An excellent place to start is Action Karate Plymouth Meeting!
