Science says happy kids tend to have these 7 traits in common

Raising kids is hard, and anyone who pretends to have all the answers is fooling you (and probably themselves too).

Many of the most important factors in a child's happiness and success are outside of parents' control, and there's still a lot researchers disagree on or don't understand about why kids develop the ways they do.

But there are some things that the literature broadly agrees make a difference in kids' lives, even though kids who don't check off these boxes are hardly doomed. (There are, of course, many routes to happiness.)

Some of the qualities we've summed up here may seem obvious, others not so much. But for parents, they're all probably worth thinking about - while still taking them with an appropriate grain of salt.

Keep scrolling to see the seven traits that happy kids tend to have in common.