Argues that happiness can be a learned and cultivated behavior, explaining how every person possesses at least five of twenty-four profiled strengths that can be built on in order to improve life.

In the face of increasing levels of depression affecting American children, a new edition of the best-selling guide to preventing childhood depression shows parents and educators how to instill optimism, resilience, and confidence in children, enabling them to feel self-reliant, boost self-esteem, and perform better in school.

Over the past thirty years, the self-esteem movement has promoted the credo in American homes and classrooms that unconditional positive feedback is what children need to make them feel better about themselves. But even though we are raising our children to feel good, the hard truth is that they have never been more depressed. In fact, depression strikes a quarter of all children today. To examine and reverse this trend, Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D.,...