Why is Denmark so happy? It must be the parenting

Jessica Joelle Alexander, author of The Danish Way Every Day, tells LISA SALMON how Danes raise happy, well-behaved children and avoid family conflict

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DENMARK is said to be the happiest country in the world and all that happiness rubs off on the country’s children, experts believe.

Jessica Joelle Alexander, a Danish parenting expert, believes the reason Denmark has been voted in the top three happiest countries globally by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) for more than 40 years in a row is because of the way Danes are brought up.

“It must be the parenting,” the American author explains. “Happy children grow up to be happy adults who raise happy children, and it is a cycle that simply repeats itself.”

She says that when she first went to Denmark, she was struck by how Danish children behaved. “They all seemed so serene, content, respectful and well-behaved. There was almost no yelling and parents looked genuinely joyful.”

Now a mother-of-two who's lived in Denmark with her Danish husband, Jessica says the way Danes raise their children changed her so much as a parent that she wanted to tell others about it. So she wrote The Danish Way of Parenting, which has been published in more than 30 countries, and has now written a follow-up guide, The Danish Way Every Day with her friend Camilla Semlov Andersson, a family therapist.

The new book describes the Danish parenting model in more detail, explaining how Danes get their children to do chores, cook together and settle into bedtime routines, as well as exploring how they deal with toddler meltdowns and teen conflicts.

Jessica uses six principles which form the acronym PARENT to explain how parents should deal with conflicts and meltdowns the Danish way.

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