**1. Introduction**

Research on children's and adolescents' happiness has increased in recent years [1] due to the association between happiness and improved physical and mental health [2,3]. For the present systematic review, happiness was conceptualized as a relatively stable, positive, and affective trait [4,5], with an emphasis on subjective well-being and general life satisfaction [2,6,7]. Previous studies [8,9] have suggested that family emotional bonds and positive relationships are primary sources of children's happiness. Indeed, dimensions of family functioning have been shown to significantly predict children's happiness, beyond the influence of peer and school settings [10]. However, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no systematic review of the relation between children's happiness and family functioning. Thus, the present systematic literature review aimed to understand the associations between children's and adolescents' happiness and dimensions of family functioning.

Happiness is comprised of an affective and a cognitive component [6,11]: (a) the affective component involves high levels of pleasant emotions (e.g., joy, interest, excitement, confidence, readiness) and low levels of negative emotions (e.g., anger, fear, sadness, guilt, contempt, disgust) [12]; (b) the cognitive component represents a global assessment of quality of life, indicating the degree to which one's essential needs, goals, and desires are satisfied [13]. These judgments are usually understood to describe overall life satisfaction, or satisfaction within a specific domain (e.g., work, family life, social life, school).

**Citation:** Izzo, F.; Baiocco, R.; Pistella, J. Children's and Adolescents' Happiness and Family Functioning: A Systematic Literature Review. *IJERPH* **2022**, *19*, 16593. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ijerph192416593

Academic Editors: V. K. Kumar and Jasmin Tahmaseb-McConatha

Received: 8 October 2022 Accepted: 8 December 2022 Published: 10 December 2022

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**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

#### *1.1. Family Functioning and Happiness*

Previous studies have suggested that healthy family functioning is associated with children's and adolescents' happiness [14]. Since the 1980s, the Circumplex model [15] and the McMaster Model of Family Functioning (MMFF) [16] have promoted a new vision of the family as an open system in interaction with the environment. However, there is no single definition of family functioning in the literature. Regardless of the differing compositions of modern families, family functioning refers to effective emotional bonding between family members, the use of family rules, family communication, and the managemen<sup>t</sup> of external events [17]. Thus, family functioning describes the dynamic interactions within a family unit and how a family fulfills its functions [18], referring to the ways in which family members interact and work together to achieve common goals and outcomes [19,20]. Various factors may influence family functioning, including family structure, socioeconomic status, life events, family relationships, and the evolutive stages of the family [19,21,22]. Although family functioning is a complex phenomenon that can be assessed in various ways [23], it generally refers to the quality of family life at a systemic level, emphasizing wellness, competence, strengths, and weaknesses [24].

Previous studies have reported that positive family functioning is associated with children's and adolescents' happiness [25–27]. In particular, research has found that family connectedness promotes well-being and parental support directly contributes to children's happiness [28]. Furthermore, the quality of family relationships has been shown to be more important to students' happiness than the peer group, school, or community [29].

Family cohesion and adaptability have been found to be linearly correlated with family functioning (i.e., family communication and satisfaction) [15]. Effective communication is a central feature of high family functioning [30], and research has shown that when parent–adolescent communication is good, the family is closer, more loving, and more flexible in solving problems [31]. Indeed, when defining their perceptions of well-being, adolescents frequently refer to good relationships and pleasant moments spent with family members [32].

As conflict tends to generate negative emotions, high-conflict families have been found to be associated with lower levels of happiness and life satisfaction [33]. On the other hand, family satisfaction, defined as the extent to which individuals feel satisfied with the level of perceived support from family members [34], has been shown to be associated with increased happiness and overall life satisfaction in children and adolescents [35–38]. Other studies have confirmed that a dysfunctional family relationship (e.g., low-income, family coherence, family conflict) is a risk factor for children's and adolescents' happiness [32,39].

#### *1.2. The Present Study*

Decades of research have highlighted the importance of studying children's development within their immediate life contexts (i.e., home, school, and community) [40]. During childhood and adolescence, these contexts represent microsystems where young people spend large parts of their daily lives [2,41]. However, few studies have comprehensively examined the personal and familial factors associated with happiness as a function of developmental age. Family functioning, parent–child relationship quality, and family satisfaction have been identified as significant predictors of children's happiness [42–44]. Moreover, studies have shown that happy people tend to have stronger social relationships than less happy people [45]. Research has also reported that the family plays an essential role in shaping the positive development of children and adolescents [46]. Finally, longitudinal studies have found that adolescents' family experiences predict multiple facets of adult functioning, including physical and mental health, well-being, and academic achievement [47].

To the best of our knowledge, the present study represents the first systematic review of the literature on the relation between happiness (i.e., subjective well-being, life satisfaction, and positive affect) and family functioning during the developmental ages of 6–18 years. The importance of exploring this specific development phase derives from scientific evidence that happiness declines with increasing age [2,27,48]. Again, studies have

highlighted the importance of addressing multicontextual influences on happiness, with the relevant literature strongly supporting the ecological theory, emphasizing the effects of salient life contexts [49]. In this sense, a systematic review of the literature could improve our understanding of the associations between children's and adolescents' happiness and dimensions of family functioning.
