The happiest kids in the world

A long time ago I was the eager participant in a lost weekend in a hotel in Amsterdam. So busy was I enjoying the distractions on offer I missed the deliriously happy children skipping around. But apparently according to a 2013 UNICEF report based on research from the World Health Organisation Dutch children are the happiest in the world. And how do we know this, becuase we read a book called ‘The Happiest Kids in the World’

Thankfully this is not one of those books that makes you feel like you have failed as a mother because your children aren’t fluent in Mandarin and splitting the atom at 6. If anything this book is the opposite, it is telling you to chill out, enjoy your life, let your kids be kids and as for your teenagers, well when in Amsterdam!

Written by Rina Mae Acosta, an American and Michelle Hutchinson, a Brit, this book explores their own experience of marrying Dutch men, moving to Holland and getting to grips with the subtle changes that lead to happy kids. It all seems quite liberating to us!

This book should be on every parents bookshelf as a guide to giving yourself a break and we won’t even be entering the teenage years without this as our reference guide.