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Monday, March 27th, 2017

Dutch kids aren’t stressed out: What Americans can learn from how the Netherlands raises children

Author:     Rina Mae Acosta and Michele Hutchison
Source:     Salon
Publication Date:     Sunday, Mar 26, 2017 10:00 AM PDT
 Link: Dutch kids aren’t stressed out: What Americans can learn from how the Netherlands raises children
Stephan:   Perhaps the greatest measure of our sickness as a society is what is happening to our children. The millions without enough to eat, the millions more who are basically warehoused instead of educated. The school to prison pipeline, and the notable poor health of American children, all this screams this reality to us. We are destroying our future, and nowhere is that made clearer than in the deep existential unhappiness of America's children. As this report describes in a survey of the world's children Dutch children are the happiest, American children aren't even in the top 25. Those of us who care about fostering wellbeing and on creating a life-affirming future must become more pro-active. There is no other way to heal this national wound.

Dutch children at play.
Credit: 123RF.com

An adapted excerpt from “The Happiest Kids in the World” by Rina Mae Acosta & Michele Hutchison. Reprinted with permission of The Experiment.

Two toddlers have just chased each other to the top of a jungle gym while their mothers are lost in conversation on a nearby park bench. A gang of older children in tracksuits comes racing along the bike path, laughing. They overtake a young mom, who is cycling slowly, balancing a baby in a seat on the front of her bike and a toddler on the back. A group of girls is playing monkey-in-the-middle on the grass. Not far away, some boys are perfecting their skateboarding moves. None of the school-age children are accompanied by adults. This is no movie, just a happy scene on a regular Wednesday afternoon in Amsterdam’s Vondelpark.

In 2013, UNICEF rated Dutch children the happiest in the world. According to researchers, Dutch kids are ahead of their peers in well-being when compared with twenty-nine of the world’s richest industrialized countries. […]

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