How can we raise happy and confident children without turning them into self-centred brats, asks Sylvia Thompson

'What is more enviable than happiness?" asked philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell in The Conquest of Happiness (1930). Nothing, it seems, if the number of new books dedicated to the subject is anything to go by. Happiness is the greatest quality we can have - and can nurture in our children - and a number of psychologists, scientists and even economists are keen to tell us how to achieve it.

Paul Martin, a biologist with a PhD in behavioural biology, is the author of Making Happy People - the nature of happiness and its origins in childhood. In addition to trawling through the social psychology literature, he shares his own insights.

Martin defines happiness as a mental state composed of three elements: pleasure (the emotional sensation of feeling good in the here and now), the absence of displeasure (freedom from anxiety and pain) and satisfaction with life in general or at least with aspects such as relationships, career or physical abilities (i.e. judging on reflection that your life is good).

He also presents the argument for a fourth dimension of happiness, which is linked to having a deeper meaning or purpose in life. This dimension of happiness, psychologists and philosophers agree, is often found through religion.

So what makes some people happier than others and how can we help our children be happy? Well, unsurprisingly, Martin suggests there are a number of aspects which contribute to a feeling of happiness. These include: a connectedness to other people through personal relationships; a social and emotional competence (i.e. an ability to deal with your feelings and those of others so you can maintain those relationships); engagement in meaningful activity; a sense of control; optimism (as opposed to self-delusion) and outward focus.

Martin believes that if educators - parents and schools - paid more attention to helping children to be happy, they would automatically be helping them to be more successful. And with World Health Organisation predictions that by 2020 depression will, after cardiovascular disease, be the second biggest cause of disability in the world, there seems plenty of good reason to help children feel at least content with their lives.

On helping children to be happy, Martin writes: "Parents and teachers can help children greatly by equipping them with practical strategies for coping with everyday problems . . . including always trying to learn from bad experiences, not setting wildly unrealistic goals and accepting that bad things sometimes just happen."

So it's no to academic hothousing, no to teaching children formal academic skills at too young an age and yes to letting them learn through play.

Martin argues that by seeking pleasure - particularly immediate pleasure - rather than satisfaction, we can actually thwart or frustrate our attempts to be happy. He quotes one large study of pre-teen children which found that those who believed fame and money to be the roots of happiness were more vulnerable to depression.

"Young children readily discover the immediate fix that comes from a pleasurable experience like eating chocolate or watching TV. Satisfaction is more elusive since it requires thinking, effort and a certain amount of patience. A child's ability to resist the desire for instant gratification, in return for greater benefits at a later time, is a good predictor of subsequent happiness and success," he writes.

He quotes one study which found that children who were able to delay their gratification at the age of four or five grew up to become more socially and academically competent adolescents. Self-control is worth 10 times as much as self-esteem, according to one expert.

Martin believes the value of nurturing self-esteem in children has been overvalued as a route to happiness and achievement, and that showering children with praise regardless of their achievements and behaviour is counterproductive.

"Some parents and teachers have come to believe that raising children's self-esteem is a sort of panacea - a 'social vaccine' that will boost their academic performance and protect them from depression, drug abuse, antisocial behaviour and a host of other undesirable outcomes."

He quotes a major British report which concluded that individuals who are most likely to become bullies, criminals or racists are those with high levels of confidence and self-esteem. He also quotes sociologist Frank Furedi, who argued that "indiscriminate praise turns children into self-centred and unmotivated brats who are unable to handle disappointment or respect other people's feelings.

"For self-esteem to be healthy, it must be tempered by reality. The implication for parents is that they should be reasonably honest with their children - loving them unconditionally (see panel) and praising their achievements, but not trying to convince them that everything they do and say is perfect," he concludes.

Martin also suggests that most happy people have a regular experience of "flow" in what they do. When children experience this sense of being happily absorbed in an activity, they are learning new skills. Unfortunately, he believes few children experience "flow" either at school or at home, due to poor role models and the fact that many leisure activities don't require sufficient personal effort.

Drawing most of his conclusions on happiness from studies in social psychology and from the new field of so-called positive psychology (the study of well-being and how people flourish), Martin shies away from the many traumatic personal experiences that contribute to individual unhappiness.

In this sense, his book will be of much more interest to those fine-tuning their family lives rather than to people who need stronger remedies to cure bigger problems that cause long-term unhappiness in their lives.

Making Happy People - the nature of happiness and its origins in childhood by Paul Martin is published by Fourth Estate, £15.99