British journalist and internationally bestselling author Helen Russell returns to the podcast to discuss THE DANISH SECRET TO HAPPY KIDS, a refreshingly funny, witty, and heart-warming roadmap to raising kids the Viking way—and helping them be happier, healthier, and more independent. Helen shares the experience of moving from London to Denmark, initially just for a year and before she had children, and discovering the unique parenting methods that prioritize unstructured play, spending time in nature (regardless of the weather!), and genuine connection, aided by the supportive social systems in the Nordic countries. She reflects on how these practices have shaped her parenting journey and her own perspectives on happiness and well-being.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome back, Helen on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. So excited to discuss the Danish Secret to Happy Kids, how the Viking way of raising children makes them happier, healthier, and more independent. Congratulations. 

Helen: Thank you so much. Lovely to be here. 

Zibby: Your book was so great. The thing about your writing is it's always, your voice is in it, like we learn more about you, and so it's not just like, Here's advice on raising kids.

It's like an experiential sort of memoir where we also learn everything we need to know about raising kids and Denmark and everything else. So, thank you for that. Very entertaining. 

Helen: Oh, I'm so pleased. Yeah, I always wanted to be. I am, I am definitely the idiot in these scenarios. I am learning and using my journalist background to speak to the best experts and then the best Viking parents who are guiding me through the process.

So yeah, I'm definitely learning along the way. 

Zibby: Yeah, I love that. You even have a section where you have a fictitious conversation with a friend to teach a science lesson. Idiot. Readers. Exactly what you're trying to get across, which was great. You're like, friend says, and I say, and friend says, and I say.

I love that part. That was really funny. Yeah. 

Helen: There's a lot of confusion. I think many of us don't really know much about the, the nuances and the granularity of perhaps the Scandinavian and the Nordic countries. I certainly didn't before I moved there. So yeah, I wanted to help the reader along a little bit.

Zibby: Yes, there will not be a pop quiz on which three countries are Scandinavian versus Nordic because I don't want to fail and that Greenland is not a part of anything But anyway now I know so it's all good Okay This book was so interesting because what we take for granted about kids and child rearing and all that stuff is now Thrown out the window, right?

Start with how you move to Denmark, which you write about in the book and from London and with your husband. I want to hear what he does for Lego. Does he still work for Lego? 

Helen: Yeah, so he, so I moved, yeah, from, from London as a carefree, child free woman and only ever planned on going to Denmark for a year when my husband got his dream job working for Lego.

Uh, in Denmark, and so, yeah, he's not, he's not on the sort of actually making the toy side, sadly, but lots of my friends are, so it's still very exciting. And we only have a plan to be there for a year, so Denmark had just been voted the happiest country in the world, and I wanted to find out why, so I started researching into that.

I'd been trying to start a family for years, had loads of fertility treatment, nothing was working, stressed in city life, as many can probably relate to. Um, and then halfway through my first year of living Danishly, I found out I was Finally, unexpectedly pregnant. And so that kind of took things in a different direction.

And suddenly I was seeing how these, these Nordic people, who always seem to top the happiness child charts, how they were built from the ground up, really. And I went on to have surprise twins. Um, so I was really kind of learning every day what parents in the Nordic countries did differently and how children, yeah, grow up happier and healthier and what they were doing differently and what we could learn from them.

Zibby: I mean, some of the things, I think our common sense, but we don't do it anyway. Do you know, like being in nature, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that's important, but we don't, I don't like force my kids out of nature and it's raining and we stay inside. And yet in your book, you tell us that, wait, I think I dog eared this page, that the chemicals in the rain itself can help kids, which I found.

Yeah. You said, did you know that raindrops release special compounds that combine in the air we breathe? I geek out at dinner after a day's research into the glories of weather and inhaling those compounds improves our mood. Why? Lego Man is a details man. And then you talk about, as water and air molecules collide, they create negative ions.

What are air ions? Damn. Um, well, air ions, and then you keep going, anyway, you tell us, but basically, being in the rain itself. self can change your mood, which 

Helen: is like, amazing! Everything from mud, they're even transplanting mud to some nurseries and kindergartens because they see that it's so good for kids.

But yeah, I think because the Nordic countries historically, you had to be outdoors to survive, survive in a harsh climate. They were just used to being outdoors, no matter how awful it was outside. And the weather is awful, like a lot of the time. Sunny today, but generally terrible October through, I don't know, March, April, May.

So you kind of had to get used to it. So I think, whereas many of us grew up with the idea of it's raining, oh, we'll just stay indoors today. They just went out anyway and always have done. So they have this thing, free Luftlieb or free air life. And it's just part of the culture here. You just go outside and, as you say, yeah, UNICEF studies show that children who spend more time in nature tend to be happier and healthier.

So, as you say, it's common sense, but we just don't do it in much of the world. 

Zibby: But I feel like having a scientific reason to do it makes me want to do it more. Yes, it's not just your grandmother says, it's actually, oh, science says, yeah. Yes, exactly. Science says. There was one vacation I went on with the kids and it started pouring rain and the water wasn't working and in the hotel that we were staying in, and we went outside and I gave them water.

like shampoo in the rain. Like, you know, like I washed, I used the rain as like the shower, all the like tiny little hotel bottles, like on the pavement. And they were like really little, my twins were little at the point. And like, you know, we were outside and they were like laughing and screaming. And it was really like one of the best times we've ever had, even though at the time we were like, Oh my gosh, it's freezing.

I don't know. It just makes all those memories, but maybe it was, maybe it was the science of the rain. So now I know. 

Helen: Yeah. You know, we're all, you know, as adults in this sort of. This lust for wellness, everyone's going towards cold water swimming. Well, it's often cold here and people are still out there in the cold water.

And yeah, so it's all the things that we are kind of being sold back to us. That if we just took a step back a little bit, we'd see we had all along and could try and get more of in our lives. 

Zibby: Well, I jumped right to rain, but your story is, is much more chronological, and you start with even getting pregnant, and then you start with paid leave, and the amazing benefits that the government of Denmark gives to families, and how life changing that is, and even how Do people in Denmark are just so happy getting married and divorced?

It's like not a big deal. So like, they like marriage so much, you said they just like to do it over and over again. 

Helen: I know, yeah, really high divorce rate, but also really high remarriage because they love it so much. They don't mind doing it more than once. And yeah, it's really interesting. So parents in, in Denmark where I am, um, get 52 weeks.

Parental leave to share between them. There's no stigma attached to that. The men have to use some as well. After which, you are guaranteed a place in high quality, uh, local, local government often run childcare from six months onwards, and that is 75 percent subsidized by the state. But I always like to point out, it's not just because the Nordic countries like to be uh, all friendly and fluffy and kind.

It's because it makes sense. We've seen that for every 1 invested in early childhood education, the broader economy gets back at least 1. 50. So childcare pays for itself. And Denmark and the Nordic countries are doing this because they, they see that it makes sense. They see it, that many women are happier if they're able to have a career and a family.

So they're just making it possible. And then the working mothers, 80 percent of mothers work. So their tax money goes to fund. The next, the next lot of parents in the system kind of works that way. So yeah, it's, it's a very different way of life. 

Zibby: Oh my 

Helen: gosh. 

Zibby: And you mentioned even the boxes that they give out to the parents.

And then you sort of slid in that you lost your sister to SIDS when, in the 80s. And I'm so sorry about that. terrible. And then you grew up an only child. Tell me, can you talk about that? 

Helen: And yeah, of course. Yeah. So my sister died of what used to be called cop death and now it's sudden infant death syndrome in the early eighties.

And now we know a lot more about putting children down on their backs, for example, so that they could, their airways are free to breathe. Um, and in Finland, as everyone was learning more about SIDS and how to prevent it, they thought, well, hang on, if we could give, Every parent, an affordable, safe way to let their baby sleep.

Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't that sort of bring down infant mortality rates? So yeah, they made this baby box that every new parent will get. And the, it's got everything you need for a new baby. So it's got the diapers, got maybe a pacifier, some clothes. And then afterwards, it's got a little mattress and the new baby can sleep in the cardboard box.

And because everybody gets it, there's no stigma attached. There's no sort of thinking that the, the Jones is two doors down. I've got a fancy cot and you've only got a cardboard box. Everybody uses it. It's, it's, they're very proud of it and it's spawned imitators in other places around the world, but actually it's brought down the infant mortality rate hugely in Finland.

And yeah, a lot of the ways that they deal with young babies in the Nordic countries, like letting them sleep outside in their carriages, but they're strapped into the baby carriages so that they can't roll over onto their front, so they may have like a duvet or a comforter on top, but it's not going to, you know, restrict their airways.

Because they, they're strapped so that they can't get stuck underneath the duvet. I'm trying to mime. This is no good on a podcast, but they thought about all of this. And so of course, as you say, that was really in my mind, becoming a new parent. As any new parent, you spend all of your time, hoping the baby will go to sleep and then listening to just chip that they're still breathing.

And, you know, and so I was very hyper vigilant about all of that stuff, but the, the Danish way and the fresh air. Um, really reassured me. And yeah, I found a way to be able to cope really enough to, to go roll those dice again. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. So are you happier? Like you've done the thing, you've done the sliding doors moment of your life and like are living the other life.

Like, what do you think your life would be like had you stayed in the UK and, or if you had stayed in London versus now? And You know, how happy are you? How happy are any of 

Helen: you? I'm very grateful for all that Denmark has brought me. But I think, you know, I, I, as we talked before, my last book about how to be sad is that we can't be happy all the time.

It's a beautiful, glorious state of joy, but it's not all the time. So of course there are the, the things that blindside us and the, and the, The personal things that will, will come out and really get at us. But I think what the Nordic countries do really well is they remove the barriers to happiness.

They, they take away reasons for unhappiness. And so I'm, yeah, I'm pretty happy. I'm doing pretty well. The sliding door thing is a weird one for me because I just, you know, you never know for sure, but certainly the way I was living in London was not conducive to A, getting pregnant or B, not getting pregnant.

having a family and ever getting to see them. So yes, it's really been helpful for me this way. But I think in this book, because I know I love Denmark, and I'm so grateful for all that it's given me, but I won't be here forever. My family and friends are still in the UK. And so I won't live here forever.

So I wanted to in this book to really distill the things that I can take with me to steal and use wherever I am in the world. So I don't want it to be too much about, Oh, don't the Scandinavian countries have it all great. And to make people green with envy, that there are things that we can export and there are things that we can not export.

vote for or lobby for or just think about a bit differently. Yeah, I guess I just 

Zibby: Yes, no, I should have, I, I'm sorry if I didn't properly put it in. The book is about, is intended to help people who don't live in Denmark extract some of the benefits so that we can have happier children and lives no matter where we are.

This is not a travel guidebook or a, you know, proselytizing to, to, 

Helen: you know. This is lovely. Come visit when it's not raining. 

Zibby: I know. Well, aside from the weather, it sounds, it sounds good. You know, the infrastructure, I mean, even just you saying 52 weeks of paid leave when here, everybody is just lobbying for really any paid leave.

And you know, the system is so terrible. So I don't know between that and the food too, you talked about with the food and eating whole foods and 

Helen: healthy. I mean, they, they have specific, I mean, the reputation for dangerous pastries isn't for nothing, but they also have a specific word. For, um, tooth butter, when you slather on the butter, the butter, the lurpak, so thick that you can see your teeth marks in when you bite into the bread.

That's lovely. They also love like wieners. They love like frankfurter sausages, but yeah, they tend to serve like three hearty meals a day, a couple of snacks in between. And I don't know about you growing up, but there's none of the whole, um, you must eat your broccoli first or there's no dessert, there's not kind of ultimatums or blackmail or bribery.

It's more like, there's the food. If you're hungry you'll eat it. If you're, if you're not hungry, maybe you'll be hungry the next meal. And yeah, that, that pressure taken off, I find as a woman having grown up with all of the fun eating issues that many of us pick up over the years, it seems to produce a much more healthy approach to food, which I really value.

Zibby: And you said how there, it's all about strong, not thin. 

Helen: Yes, isn't that amazing? And it makes sense, of course, that kind of the Viking ideal. I spoke to someone in Norway who said, um, we were having a talk, we were having a talk on Zoom just like this, and he said, show me your arms. And I thought, oh, hello, what's going on here?

And he said, yeah, you'd survive in the wild. Like, that would be considered, like, good arms, because you need strong arms to survive. So it's, it's strong, not thin. An emphasis on training rather than going to the gym to be lesser. It's. It's training to get stronger, which is just like a little kind of shift in the way you approach it.

That makes a big difference. I really like that. 

Zibby: Wow. Well, I don't know. I don't know what to do with the fact that like I live here and I'm doing everything wrong and like, 

Helen: no, I think, you know, there's, there's lots of things that I plan to steal

Not just because the Lego connection or Hans Christian Andersen or any of that stuff, but kids play for a lot longer in the Nordic countries than they do in the US and the UK, play exclusively until the age of six or seven in Finland. And it always makes me laugh because they love play so much that they named it twice.

It's the New York, New York of, of the recognition, but there's a, there's a word for unstructured imaginative play and that's lie in Danish. And then there's play of it's a board game or a sport or musical instrument, that's spieler. And so. They, they make sure they have time in their lives for all of these different types of play.

It's really encouraged and it means that even adults kind of have a more playful nature than perhaps I'd encountered elsewhere where the pace of life maybe is a bit more intense. But yeah, that, that idea of, of play is really important for being healthy and happy and more creative thinking feels really helpful when you work in jobs like we do where we have to be able to think creatively, but often we're so busy.

Thank you. That kind of falls by the wayside. So the idea that having permission to prioritize that and that actually studies show, again, going back to science, studies from Cambridge University and, and Danish studies show that children who learn through play get to the same point in the end. There's no difference.

There's no advantage to sitting a child down with books rather than learning through play. So I'm trying to trust a little bit and let my kids do it that way. 

Zibby: Someone gave me the game Higgy. Higgy? Higgy? How do you pronounce it? Oh, the 

Helen: word is who they it was a 

Zibby: game. That's exciting. It's a game. Yeah, it comes in like a little box.

Like at dinner we always try to play these like little conversation games because they're really funny and make us laugh. Anyway, so that's one of them and I've loved it so much that I've now given it as a gift to some other people. How do you play? What do they do? I know, you know, it's, there's no board, there's no board or anything.

They're just like little cards that come in like a white sort of plastic case or something like that. And then you read the cards and their questions and things like that, designed to like help you get to know the people better, but it's fun. 

Helen: Oh, so yeah, so it's that kind of cozy togetherness. So yeah, that's nice.

And, and the soft skills and the collaboration and cooperation is, is prioritized throughout everything in, in Denmark. It often feels as though things maybe take a little longer, things go a little slower, but it's because those, those moments of connection, those togetherness soft skills are really important.

Really highly valued and prized, which I found a bit weird when I first came here. I came from London. I came from a really fast paced life, but actually now when you think about a I and how the world is changing so much that it's going to be those skills for connection and collaboration and hopefully creativity to that.

That's what our kids will need. So Fostering those feels like a really good plan. Yes. Good plan. I'm on board. I'm on board. It'll be a 

Zibby: great 

Helen: game. It'll be great. 

Zibby: Yeah, yeah. And so what, what is your next project? 

Helen: Well, I am writing a novel right now. Yes, it's very exciting. Um, but as you know, it's a very different headspace, so I'm going off into my imaginary world, but I think, you know, when you have a family, It's very grounding because you can never feel too lofty about anything because there will be somebody who needs something mopping up, or needs something cooking for them, or needs something washing for them.

So I'm trying to encourage self sufficiency, Dane's very good on that, and I'll let my kids do a bit more around the house and help out a little bit so that I can crack on with Writing the novel, but yeah, it's interesting. This book especially has been one that obviously my children have been a lot more involved in than my other books.

So it's my sixth, but suddenly this is the one that they're kind of aware of. And they're like, oh yeah, you, you said this, so you have to let me play now. And you, and you said I could do this myself, so I'm going to do this. It's interesting. They're quite invested. And hopefully that will give me some time to be 

Zibby: able to do the next book.

We'll see. Yes. Well, they'll be so excited. I mean, you know. How is book marketing in Denmark work? Like, is this a big book in, like, did the Danes adopt it as, like, a, you know, a big testament to their strength. 

Helen: Oh, that's a very kind thought. Um, not so much. I think, so, internationals moving to the Nordic countries are very supportive and interested, and Danes who are curious about how they appear to outsiders.

And Danes are very good at that. They're, um, for a country that always comes top of the happiness polls, they could be pretty cocky or arrogant about it, but they never are. They're very interested in what people think about them, which is very, very good. Kind and generous, but yeah, in Denmark, it's more like, well, this is taken for granted.

This is normal. So things like hygge and things like the emphasis on play or being outdoors or risky play or not, not over praising their children. The fact that I've written about this. My Nordic parenting friends think, of course, like, why wouldn't that be the case? It's just how it's been forever. So, no, for them, I am a strange recitalist, writing about them, and they're like, how is this interesting?

And I try and explain, well, it doesn't quite work like this in other places around the world. We don't sing at school every day in other places around the world, so it's quite fun that you do that here. Wait, can you, can you say any more about the novel? Oh, well, it is, so I, I love, um, a story about a woman in the, in her 20s or 30s, finding herself as much as the next woman, but I wanted to write something for people in the life stage I'm in and beyond about what happens then when maybe you're out of the trenches of early parenthood, but you've also still, um, given so much and, um, and taken on so many roles that perhaps you might not have chosen to and what happens when that all becomes too much.

That's what I'm doing next. I love it. Oh my gosh. Gorilla comedy combined. Comedy. We'll make it up. 

Zibby: Comedy. All right. Thromedy from Helen Russell. Stay tuned. So what advice do you have for aspiring authors? 

Helen: Oh, I think, what do I think? I think you just have to do it. I think, um, I speak to people quite a lot and I, and I speak in schools quite a lot or at universities and there's a lot of people, of course, who will say, I would like to write a book.

And I say, oh, that's great. Have you, have you done any of it yet? They say, no. And I say, well, you kind of just have to, to get out that, of course. That terrible first drafts, every first draft is terrible. Just get to the end of that terrible first draft, and then you can go back with a different part of your brain.

And a journalist background was really helpful for me because I would get from my creative side. I would get down the first draft and then I'd go into my editing mode with a different colored pen, always got pens in my hand, and I could be really critical and go through it and say, that's terrible, could do better.

So I think printing things out, red pens. Getting the End of the Terrible First Draft, and also so many of us consume so many stories these days, be it books or TV or movies, that actually, if we just trust ourselves, we have an idea of the rhythm of speech and what will keep a reader's attention. So I think, um, Yeah, just get some peace and trust yourself and go with it, get to the end of that first draft I'd say.

Love it. 

Zibby: Amazing. Well, Helen, congratulations. I really enjoyed the book. It was entertaining and I learned a lot and it made me definitely think differently about my own parenting as we struggled to get out the door this morning. So 

Helen: thank you very much. The battle to get shoes on is real. Yes, exactly.

Lovely to see 

Zibby: you. 

Helen: All right. Thanks 

Zibby: for listening to moms don't have time to read books. If you love it, please leave a review and follow us on social at Zippy Owens and at Zippy readers.