Aries, I don’t mean that kids should not be happy. Chas V’sholom. I do however, mean that worrying about every little thing MAKING them happy, should not be a priority. If that were the case, we sould never send them to school, or take them for immunizations, or to the dentist. We cannot always worry about the impact on their self-esteem, yet we are conditioning them to think that being happy is the main thing in life. It says “Ivdu Hashem b’simcha.” Sometimes we forget that the Ivdu part, the work, is the major component of what brings us to simcha. Our kids have been coddled, we are afraid to discipline them for fear of hurting their feelings, and sending them to a psychologist years down the line because of those hurt feelings. When I was a child, things were different, and in my very humble opinion, better. Kids should be happy, but I know I was, and my parents were not afraid to say NO, or to set us straight in life. I see parents today trying to reason with kids having tantrums, by bribing them. The first time my toddler acted up in a store, I left the cart with my packages (apologizing to the clerk), took him out, and we had no more shopping expeditions together for a while. He got the message, and never did it a second time. His self=esteem is just fine, thanks, and he has a toddler of his own now.
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