Danish parenting and education course

Hi, my name is Jessica Joelle Alexander. Welcome to my masterclass. In this episode, I’m going to tell you a little bit about myself and the journey to the Danish way of parenting and education.

more than 20 years ago. I met my Danish husband to be, and I went to Denmark for the first. And I was absolutely blown away now. I wasn’t blown away by the weather and I wasn’t blown away by the food. Although now Denmark has very good food. It’s scoring really high. No, at that time, no, it was not the food.

It was not the weather. It was the children. The children in Denmark were so happy and serene and calm and well-behaved and respectful. I just, I couldn’t get over it. It was everywhere. And at that time I wasn’t really sure. Um, I wanted to have children. I was not what you would consider a kid person. So seeing this for me was, really, really hopeful.

And I said to my husband at the time, I said, if I can get a guarantee that I’ll have a Danish child, then okay. All bets are on let’s, let’s do this. So many years later, I was, uh, I was, I was pregnant with my first child and I was put on bedrest for five months. And in that time I read hundreds of parenting books.

I wanted to be over prepared, but a funny thing happened after my daughter was born. I found that I preferred my Danish families, advice, my Danish friends, my husband, all of their advice. I preferred to the books I have. And this just kept happening over and over again. It was from breastfeeding to education to sleeping to everything.

And of course I had the proof around me of all these danish children. So something was working and slowly, this just became my, my reference. My only reference was, was the Danish way of doing things. It was just like a way of how they educate and parenthood. So many years later, I was on vacation and I was reading the newspaper and I read that Denmark had been voted as the happiest country in the world that year.

Now I’m American. My country is veritably obsessed with happiness. We have thousands of books devoted to the subject. We are constantly it’s in our declaration of independence. So the pursuit of happiness. Is in our declaration of independence. And yet we score surprisingly low on the world happiness score.

So this was a surprise for me. And then I would go on to discover that it wasn’t just that year, but for over 40 years in a row, Denmark is constantly voted in the top three as the happiest people in the world this year, the number. That same day. I had been observing my husband playing with my daughter and what I consider a very Danish way.

And I had been thinking that day. Wow. I’m so I feel so grateful that I have this influence, like this, this Danish influence in my life, because it had made me, I felt it had made me a better parent, a better person. It had made me happier. And I was, I was actually thinking, wow, I think this is going to make my daughter happy.

And in that moment I had, I guess a Eureka moment, the aha. They say that when you, when you meet the one, you know, so, I’ve been a cultural researcher for many years and a writer, but in that moment, my life’s calling was there. And I knew that I had to write about this because happy children and grow up to be happy, adults who raise happy children.

And this is a cycle that repeats itself and. It had affected me. So profoundly the woman who was not a kid person that I knew it could help others. And from that day forth, I have devoted my life, my passion to spreading the word of the Danish values, which, I believe are, are profound and, a huge contributor to wellbeing.

Which we can see in the happiness scores, I’ve written three books. one of which the Danish way of parenting, is published in 32 countries. It’s, one of the bestselling parenting books of all time. I firmly believe this is because it resonates with other parents who maybe felt like I did.

And, I currently ride. And what I would like to do today is share with you some of the fundamental values, behind Danish parenting and education. And I hope that you will leave with the ability right now to implement some of these ways and, and see a difference in not just your children, but in yourself.

We’ve talked about all of the ways that we can be different culturally. But as an activity, I’d really like you to go to the course material and watch the video. Parenting is a verb that connects us all is very short, but it’s such a beautiful example of how, yes, there’s a million right ways to do things, but there’s one thing that really connects us.

So please check it out.