Ever see a little child fall down? Ever notice the huge difference in ensuing mood depending on the parents' reaction? If adults ignore the fall, the kid generally gets up (sometimes ignoring wounds), tries again, and keeps going. If the parents quickly gather around, clucking in sympathy, the kid notices, stops trying, and -- belatedly -- bursts into magnificent tears and sobs for all to see.

Such parents train their children in victimhood early, drilling home the crucial message: "Focusing obsessively on your sadness and misery will give you lots of attention and love."

Via The Independent:

One of Britain's biggest education authorities is to put happiness at the heart of the curriculum for its 180,000 school pupils. Birmingham City Council is to tell its 440 schools that they must give as much priority to children's emotional well-being as they do to literacy and numeracy.

The authority is believed to be the first in Britain to rewrite its children's development plan – now required by law – to give priority to pupils' happiness.

Children will attend "emotional barometer" sessions to encourage them to express their feelings and their worries. Nursery pupils will also be given coaching in how to prepare for primary school.

Hey, I'm all in favor of happy kids. (Is there, presumably, a big pro-misery-for-kids contingent out there somewhere?) But in one life's little ironies, it seems that most the techniques which are today believed to make kids "happy" have, instead, the effect of making them into miserable and narcissistic little humans. One of the odd things about happiness is that the more you focus on it, and pursue your own, the less you have of it.

I'm pretty sure there's almost no hard science backing these approaches, and probably a lot showing they're bad for kids.

In a parallel development, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers is to debate a call to set up a Royal Commission to find out why so many children are unhappy at school.

Could it be the me-centered curriculum? An unstable home life? A frequent lack of any boundaries or guidance?

No, it's the education, stupid:

Union members will tell the association's conference in Torquay that they are worried that so many children – particularly those of primary school age – are displaying signs of anxiety because of the pressures of too much testing.

Clearly, that's got to go. Who needs reading and "maths" when can have a high view of your own wonderfulness instead?

Oh, to be in England. They're so enlightened over there.