As people strive to incorporate spiritual practices into their lives, many wonder how to help their children grow up happy, confident and spiritually aware.

Child development and parenting expert Maureen Healy – who also has a background in Buddhist psychology – offers advice and real-life examples to help parents do just that in her new book “Growing Happy Kids: How to Foster Inner Confidence, Success and Happiness.”

Divided into three sections, the book explains the importance of feeling confidence within, rather than relying on outside influences, and how to raise your child in this manner. It explores both inner and outer confidence, and the stages of confidence as they relate to children; explains what the author calls “the five building blocks of confidence” and how to implement them; offers advice on what to do when confidence breaks; and gives real-life examples from both the author’s life and from working with clients.

“Arming your children with this type of inner confidence will enable them to pursue their happiest lives, make choices from a place of power, and create whatever their hearts desire,” says Healy in the book. “Every parent wants his or her child to be happy and to live the best life. As you’ll soon discover, this is only possible with inner confidence.”