The No. 1 thing parents are ‘completely forgetting’ to teach their kids today, says a parenting expert and mom

As the founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools, I’ve spent decades working with parents and educating students from underserved communities. I am also a mom to three kids.

Too often, I see parents putting so much energy into teaching their kids to act responsibly, clean their room, or do their homework. All of that is important, but there’s one thing that many of us are completely forgetting about: how to enjoy life.

Sure, that seems like one thing kids do naturally. But many happy children grow up to be unhappy adults. There’s a difference between enjoying life as a young child and being prepared to enjoy life as an adult.

In my experience, people are happiest when their life includes some type of meaningful, productive activity. Unfortunately, we are constantly being bombarded with the message that happiness comes from consumption.

When advertisers tell us to “treat” ourselves to their products, they are trying to make us believe that buying things is the ultimate reward, that we will be happy only if we buy a fancier car or a bigger house.

How do you fight back? Don’t make it a habit to take your children to stores where they can go running around saying “I want this” and “I want that.”

Even if your child isn’t directly exposed to a lot of advertising, they may be exposed to the culture that this advertising has created. Their friend shows them some incredible new toy they got that the friend will play with for the next week until they get another toy, for example, or they attend a birthday party at which a friend is showered with gifts.

Don’t encourage your child to believe that having things brings happiness by giving them too many gifts.

The concept that you express your love for somebody by giving them a gift is a nice idea that once worked pretty well, but many kids get so much stuff nowadays that it quickly becomes overkill.

As for your…