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Sunday, April 16th, 2017

Dutch Kids Aren’t Stressed Out: What Americans Can Learn From How the Netherlands Raises Children

Author:     Rina Mae Acosta, Michele Hutchison
Source:     Alternet
Publication Date:     April 13, 2017
 Link: Dutch Kids Aren’t Stressed Out: What Americans Can Learn From How the Netherlands Raises Children
Stephan:   It has always seemed self-evident to me that children are the future. What argument can refute that? It follows then that a appalling state of American children, except for the 1%, is a harbinger of an appalling future. It's not as if no one knows how to rear healthy, happy children, primed to fulfilled their potential. The other day I did a piece on Danish babies. Here is how healthy children are being reared in the Netherlands. So why can't Americans do this? Answer: because our culture places profit above human wellbeing.

Dutch kids at play
Credit: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

The following is an adapted excerpt from The Happiest Kids in the World (The Experiment, April 2017) by Rina Mae Acosta and Michele Hutchison.

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 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 29 of the […]

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