Chasing your child's happiness could be quietly building their anxiety

Picture your body as a large jar, and floating inside it are every feeling you could possibly have, some that feel upsetting and some that feel lighter. The space each one takes up shifts constantly. Clinical psychologist Becky Kennedy uses this image to explain something that sounds almost backward: the more space a person can make for frustration, disappointment, envy, and sadness, the more room is actually left over for happiness to surface. Happiness, in her view, isn't something you chase directly. It's something that shows up once the jar isn't already full of unmanaged distress.

This is why Kennedy is far more interested in resilience than in happiness as a parenting goal. She offers a simple, if slightly oversimplified, equation: stress plus coping equals internal experience. A child's resilience isn't a fixed trait some kids have and others lack, it's the skill of tolerating a hard moment, a falling block tower, a tricky puzzle, being left out, without needing confirmation that things will work out. Resilience building happens, she argues, in the uncomfortable space before a win arrives, not after it, which is exactly why it's so easy to want to skip past it.

Here's the part parents often get backward, according to Kennedy: when we focus on making our kids happy in the moment, we usually end up trying to eliminate their disappointment rather than helping them sit inside it. Reminding a child who wasn't invited to a birthday party that the host probably really does like them, or telling a child anxious about a big loss that everything will be fine, teaches a lesson neither parent intends: that the discomfort itself is unacceptable and needs to be gotten out of as fast as possible. Kennedy argues this actually sets kids up for more anxiety later, because as adults, they still haven't learned that discomfort is survivable, only escapable.

Her alternative shows up in small moments. When her own child struggles with a falling block tower and says, help me, she resists immediately building a sturdier base. Instead she says something like, ugh, how annoying, takes an audible breath, and stays curious alongside him. The goal isn't to rescue him out of the hard feeling. It's to make sure he isn't alone inside it, which, she argues, is what actually builds the capacity to feel at home with oneself no matter what.

Pay attention to the moment you're tempted to swoop in and make a hard feeling disappear, whether that's a falling block tower, a tough homework problem, or being left out of something. Try staying in it with your child instead, saying something like that sounds so hard, and pause before offering any fix. When something genuinely painful happens, resist reassuring your child it will all be fine, and instead describe what's true while staying close as they feel whatever they feel. Before you step in, ask yourself whether you're helping this child tolerate the distress or helping them escape it. The steadier your child becomes often has less to do with outcomes and more with how often you chose to stay.