The other night my daughter and I sat down to watch a Danish kids’ TV program called Wild Friends. It’s a sweet show about two young kids who are animal rescuers. They get calls from all over the countryside to save animals they bring back to a farm where they nurse...
Parents Play to Win in Happiness
Most parents want their children to be happy. This is universal. But what constitutes happiness and moreover, how is our modern-day idea of success getting in the way of achieving this? As the author of the Danish Way of Parenting; What the Happiest People in the...
I Told Myself I Couldn’t Pursue My Dream, and That’s What Held Me Back
Everything changed once I stopped telling myself I didn’t have what it takes. It was always my dream to be a writer. For 10 years I wrote the same novel five times, but I never finished it. “I’m not a writer,” I would think to myself. Then I had children, and my life...
The Danish way’ trumps the American dream
The American author of a new book about Danish parenting writes that the Danes' focus on empathy makes them much happier than Americans who pursue material goods. I used to undervalue the importance of empathy until I married a Dane. Through my many years living...
Hygge Family Bonding: 7 Things I Learned From the Happiest People in the World
What I learned about how to implement Hygge to foster more connection. Denmark has constantly been voted as one of the happiest countries on earth for over 40 years in a row. As an American married to a Dane, I always noticed the calm, serene, and happy nature of...
Teaching kids empathy: In Danish schools, it’s … well, it’s a piece of cake
American students are falling behind on valuable social skills. In Denmark, one simple classroom tradition works. We all know what a Danish pastry is — that delightful caloric bomb of glazed breakfast deliciousness. But what about a Danish classroom cake? And...
The Danish Way: 3 Tips to Divorcing Happily Ever After
We all know how popular divorce is. These days you have about a 50% chance of your marriage surviving and judging by the bitter divorces battles that get splattered all over the news, it’s no wonder the first sentence uttered when a split is imminent is “get a...
Are Homework and Testing Measuring Up?
When I talked to my Danish husband about getting grades when I was in kindergarten, he almost fell off the bed. “What in the world did you get grades for?” We would discuss our childhoods at length and I remember thinking that my poor husband must have been neglected....
How to “Hygge” this Thanksgiving : 5 Tips to Guarantee More Happiness
Turkey day is upon us and many of us are fretting over ingredients, travel plans and general excitement and anxiety over seeing the family. While it is lovely to be together for the holidays, most of us know that despite our best intentions, drama could be brewing...
The Secret To Danish Happiness
Denmark consistently ranks as one of the happiest countries in the world. The reason why might lie with the idea of "hygge." This article first appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. In November, GGSC is...

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Why Danish Parents Like to Talk About Death
The other night my daughter and I sat down to watch a Danish kids’ TV program called Wild Friends. It’s a sweet show about two young kids who are animal rescuers. They get calls from all over the countryside to save animals they bring back to a farm where they nurse...
Parents Play to Win in Happiness
Most parents want their children to be happy. This is universal. But what constitutes happiness and moreover, how is our modern-day idea of success getting in the way of achieving this? As the author of the Danish Way of Parenting; What the Happiest People in the...