The social-emotional well-being of our students, staff, and families is always a top priority. At Harvard CUSD 50 Parent University, we explored Happiness Habits—practical strategies to cultivate positivity and resilience at home. As part of this commitment, we are excited to share Optimistic Household,  created by Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage and Big Potential.

Optimism is not about the glass being half full, as is commonly believed. Optimism refers to your belief system about how successful you think your actions are and how effectively you can impact the world. It involves learning to think positively about the future, even when things go wrong. It’s about looking objectively at a situation and making a conscious decision to focus on the good.

It is important to build children’s resilience as optimistic people are happier and more engaged, succeed more often, and are better problem solvers. Optimists do better academically and socially and have better health than pessimists, so it makes sense to promote optimistic thinking skills to children. Optimists look at the flip side of adverse events for some good, some hope, and some reason to be hopeful. Recent research indicates that children learn optimism or pessimism from their experiences of success and through their interactions with parents, teachers, and other significant adults.

Through initiatives like Optimistic Household, we strive to spark positivity, optimism, and hope for our students, staff, and families—both in the classroom and at home. Below are tools to support your family in creating an optimistic household and reinforcing happiness habits every day.

Happiness is a choice. 40% of our happiness comes from intentional daily habits. Only 10% of our happiness is due to our external circumstances.

Pick one of the following five researched habits and try it out for 21 days in a row to create a positive habit. Doing so actually rewires — or trains — your brain to be more positive.

• Three Gratitudes: Pause to take note of three new things each day that you are grateful for. Doing so will help your brain start to retrain its pattern of scanning the world, looking not just for the negative inputs but for the positive ones.

• Journaling: Similar to the gratitude practice, but in this case, detail in writing one positive experience each day. This will help you find meaning in the activities of the day, rather than just noticing the task itself.

• Fun Fifteen: Exercising for 15 minutes a day not only brings physical benefits, but it also teaches your brain to believe your behavior matters, which then carries (positively) into other activities throughout the day.

• Meditation: Take just two minutes per day to simply breathe and focus on your breath going in and out. Doing so will train your mind to focus, reduce stress, and help you be more present in this moment.

• Conscious Acts of Kindness: This can be something simple. Shawn suggests writing one positive email to praise or thank someone each day. Not only does it benefit the recipient, but it also increases your feeling of social support.