The Happiness Conference was a timely reminder of the rewards gained from the small things in life. We are often so intent on achieving the big ‘milestones’ in life that we forget the simple pleasures along the way.

Mark and I are creatures of habit. Because we work in the evenings we usually start each day with an early walk, which more often than not leads to a coffee. This morning ritual is definitely one of my simple pleasures, but the conference prompted me to consider the individual parts of the walk.

Mark, tick; yes, he does make me smile and being with him for the walk certainly makes it complete. Beach, tick; I love the sound of the waves crashing on the sand and the way the scene changes, sometimes subtly, every day. Sun, mostly tick, although the wind and rain have recently been testing my patience and taking the happiness score back down!

Apart from my husband, the biggest tick by far, is Meg, our miniature Labradoodle. 9Kgs soaking wet, and sporting a wool coat that never sheds, she is the ‘huggiest’ (I’m allowed to make up words!) thing ever, squeezing in to even the smallest corners of our lives. And, yes, she does make me smile.

Her needs are simple; walk, eat, sleep, poop, often in that order. She is the princess of the house (don’t’ forget we don’t have children); rarely told off, thinks every chair, both sofas and both beds, are sleeping areas reserved for her, and demands licking rights on any plate of food that we have dared to leave unfinished.

In return, she wags her tail. That’s it really. Oh yes, she is extremely ‘huggable’ (yep, another made up one, so there!), makes no fuss, barks very little and is great with kids, but her tail wagging is by far her major achievement.

It doesn’t matter how dark or wet it is, how little I slept the night before, or how busy the day ahead will be, when Meg hits the beach, her simple pleasure translates into this amazing, constant, metronome tail wagging, and the corners of my mouth automatically curl up. I can’t help it, this mad little puppy just makes both of us smile and we both feel better for it.

So, the point is that it can be the simple things in life, often the things that we take for granted, that can have the greatest impact on our wellbeing. It is something that we always try to remember in the centre. Whether they realise it or not, kids are affected by the simple things. Which is why we encourage a little bit of madness (well, actually, Mark doesn’t need encouraging!), and reward and praise instead of noting mistakes. We want learning to be a simple pleasure, to see the metaphoric ‘wagging tails’ in the room as the kids achieve. I want those unconscious smiles associated with learning.

Try it at home.  Use a bit of positive reinforcement, praise the things they get right and try ignoring the errors.  We want wagging tails at home too!