The Happiest Kids in the World: How Dutch Parents Help Their Kids (and Themselves) by Doing Less

Calling all stressed-out parents: Relax! Imagine a place where young children play unsupervised, don't do homework, have few scheduled "activities" . . . and rank #1 worldwide in happiness and education. It's not a fantasy--it's the Netherlands!

Rina Mae Acosta and Michele Hutchison--an American and a Brit, both married to Dutchmen and raising their kids in the Netherlands--report back on what makes Dutch kids so happy and well adjusted. Is it that dads take workdays off to help out? Chocolate sprinkles for breakfast? Bicycling everywhere?

Whatever the secret, entire Dutch families reap the benefits, from babies (who sleep 15 hours a day) to parents (who enjoy a work-life balance most Americans only dream of). As Acosta and Hutchison borrow ever-more wisdom from their Dutch neighbors, this much becomes clear: Sometimes the best thing we can do as parents is . . . less!


About the Author
Rina Mae Acosta is a writer from California currently living in the Netherlands with her Dutch husband and two young sons. She founded the successful parenting blog Finding Dutchland.
Michele Hutchison is the 2020 International Booker Prize-winning translator of The Discomfort of Evening. She lived and worked in Britain before moving to Amsterdam in 2004 where she now lives with her husband and two children.