Raising happier kids

Amber Duke writes in The Spectator that children in families with conservative parents are happier. She bases this conclusion on an interesting Gallup poll from 2023.

Seventy-seven percent of adolescents with very conservative parents reported good or excellent mental health, compared to just 55 percent of adolescents with liberal parents. 

While I think she’s mixing causation and correlation—it doesn’t necessarily follow, I would argue, that if you are conservative, you’ll raise happier kids—the practices that lead to better mental health outcomes in kids are worth noting:

Children respond the best to parents who are warm and affectionate but also set boundaries and discipline their children when necessary. For example, requiring a child to complete priorities set by parents before allowing them to play or relax, setting a regular routine for school days, hugging or kissing the child every day and responding quickly to a child’s needs are all associated with an approximately seven-percentage-point-higher chance of the child having good mental health. 

What the survey found, in other words, is that parents who lean conservative tend to adopt this parenting style more than parents who lean liberal.

[L]iberal parents are more likely to adopt a permissive parenting style, which is associated with a poor parent-child relationship and, consequently, poorer mental health outcomes for the child. 

Regardless of your politics, the takeaway is clear about what parenting style is most likely to lead to better mental health outcomes for your children.