I’ll never forget when my son attended a birthday party and spent quite a bit of time in an arcade where he amassed what seemed like THOUSANDS of tickets.

With all those tickets one would assume he’d be able to afford a down-payment on a car– but what he wanted most was a set of fake fingers. And he actually spent years playing with those fake fingers ( and still does!)

Those simple silly plastic must be a penny fake fingers. As a parent – his love of those fake fingers taught me a valuable lesson- that as a parents we need to help our kids recognize that they are responsible for their own happiness and that happiness is an inside job.

I am also truly trying to underscore to them that one of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy and one of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself. Which leads me to 20 Things Our Children Need Most (NONE OF WHICH IS AN iPHONE)

According to Dr. Gregg Steinberg, author of Flying Lessons: 122 Strategies to Teach Your Child to Soar into Life with Competence and Confidence, teaching your child to savor life’s sweet moments are a surefire way to raise their happiness quotient. Here are a few of his tips to help families find their happy place.

Live in the moment
Get a Starburst and unwrap it. Close your eyes and begin to chew; the flavor will be intensified and much sweeter. After this exercise, parents can remind their children that moments of happiness are like that, they become much sweeter when we are paying attention to them.

Have an early morning happy hour
To help your child start the day in a happy mood, try this simple exercise: When your child wakes up in the morning, have her focus on three aspects she is thankful for in her life. It could be her health, her friends, her pet, her family and so forth. She will find that when she chooses to focus on these simple thoughts, her morning will be that much brighter. It is an early morning happy hour.

Trash your mistakes
To help your child forget his mistakes more quickly and be happier, teach him how to trash his mistakes. Tell him to write down negative thoughts he’s had recently such as, “I flubbed that answer on the test.” Then crumple up the paper, and throw it into the trash can. Then, encourage him to say, “In the trash can!” whenever that thought creeps back into his mind. Such a technique will help kick all those negative thoughts and past mistakes out of his mind-leading to greater happiness in the moment.

And keep reading for 20 Things Our Children Need Most (NONE OF WHICH IS AN iPHONE) It’s all in the simple stuff!