I'm struggling to name another parent more different from myself and my peers than Adrian Peterson or Mama June.

It's not because they are celebrities -- one famous athlete and one questionable reality TV star.

It's because each of them behaved in ways this year that seemed far outside what's considered normal by conventional parenting standards. For parents who question themselves nearly as often as they feel judged by others, the misdeeds of celebrity parents seem to push the rest of us up the bell curve.

Public parenting mistakes may seem like the safest way to pass judgment on a person everyone knows, but no one knows personally. Yet even when they remind us which lines we would not cross, they reveal something about our culture and about ourselves. To attempt to distance ourselves from the most egregious parenting behaviors is to miss the opportunity to see the big picture.

NFL running back Adrian Peterson has not played for the Minnesota Vikings since September, when he was charged with abusing his 4-year-old son. He pleaded no contest in November to misdemeanor reckless assault for hitting his son with a wooden switch, which caused welts and bleeding on the child's back, legs, buttocks, genitals and ankles.

If America had watched a video of a 6-foot, 217-pound man whipping a 4-year-old boy's bare body, would there be any question about whether that man committed a crime? Probably not. It's one thing to debate appropriate discipline, but it's another to actually see a professional football player take a switch 10 to 15 times to a preschool-age child to the point that it draws blood and leaves marks days later.

Even parents who have spanked their children, and many have, wouldn't go this far.

But who among us has not felt a moment of fury, an outsized reaction to a child's misbehavior that pushed our buttons beyond our rational self? What if our worst parenting moments were recorded and posted for the world to see?

Peterson's actions reminded us how easy it can be to escalate a situation and how easily a grown adult can seriously hurt a small child.

Another person out of a job this year because of questionable parenting was reality TV star "Mama June" Shannon, the matriarch of TLC's now-canceled "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo." She allegedly renewed a relationship with Mark McDaniel, the man who reportedly molested her daughter when the girl was 8 years old. Although Shannon denies dating McDaniel, her pattern of behavior suggests deep denial about the severity of what her daughter suffered.

Child sexual abuse is far more common than most adults would like to believe. Most researchers who study the prevalence of child sexual abuse suggest the rate is between 8 percent to 20 percent of all children.

The true prevalence of child sexual abuse is not known, because victims are reluctant to report it. Even so, the Children's Assessment Center in Houston estimates that there will be 500,000 babies born in the U.S. this year who will be sexually abused before they turn 18.

And yet, many adults doubt a child's accusations made against a relative, popular teacher, coach or religious leader. Research has consistently shown that few abusers are ever identified or incarcerated. Estimates suggest that only 3 percent of all cases of child sexual abuse, and only 12 percent of rapes involving children, are ever reported to police, according to data from the Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence. Relatively few accused offenders are ever investigated or charged.

There is a culture of denial toward the problem of child sexual abuse; most people don't want to believe children were victimized or that trusted adults abused them.

But this culture of denial extends beyond the realm of horrific felonies. Plenty of ordinary parents deny, ignore or rationalize our own less-than-stellar parenting moments. We might not physically take out our rage on our children, but maybe we vent our frustration by yelling in anger. We may not be cable TV-level stage moms, but maybe we put our children in a social media spotlight they haven't asked for.

If we are honest, most parents can find hints of Adrian Peterson's criminal overreaction or Mama June's deep well of denial within us.

It's infinitely easier to change the channel than confront that uncomfortable notion.

There are times when a foggy malaise can settle into a spot. Even when cracks of sunlight break through this vapor, a heaviness lingers.

Despite being a reporter -- a job where we're conditioned to notice and document what's wrong, unfair, tragic and broken -- I usually enjoy being a happy and positive person. But there has been so much striking and detailed pain on display in our world recently.

This summer, the gruesome images of the war in Gaza were soon joined by heartbreaking ones out of Ferguson. Couple this with the fact that my generation has entered that period of life when there's a steady stream of devastating personal news among our peers: Parents (or even children) die, alarming diagnoses are more common, and friends divorce.

We have been through cycles of tragedy, death and destruction before. But this prolonged dark period provoked a deeper anxiety in me. From the personal to the political, the onslaught of bad news has felt relentless.

It was in the midst of this run of gloominess that I decided to embark on a happiness project. Not happiness as in a constant state of chipper: Some of the most outwardly cheerful people I've known have been deeply unhappy inside. But happiness in the way that psychologists have defined it: the pleasure of feeling good; engagement in living a good life with family, friends, work and hobbies; and finding meaning in being able to use our strengths toward a greater purpose.

Is it possible to increase those pieces of happiness, thereby becoming happier?

There's an entire body of research that looks at ways to make people happier in life and work. I sifted through some of this positive psychology analysis and watched the most popular TED talk on the subject.

Positive psychology experts Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan have written extensively about the habits that can train our brains to think more positively, which they argue leads to our brains making us feel happier. Scientists say there's a biochemical process at work: Positive emotions like love and joy release dopamine and serotonin into our brains. This biochemical wash helps our brain process new information, think more quickly and creatively, and connect better with others.

Achor and Gielan suggest that incorporating these five daily habits for as little as 21 days can make us happier:

1. Write down three unique and new things you are grateful for every day. This teaches the brain to scan for new, good things.

2. Spend a few minutes writing down in detail the most meaningful moment from your day. This allows you to relive what made it meaningful for you.

3. Praise or thank a different person in your social network every day, either by email or phone, for something specific. This will remind your brain of the support around you.

4. Exercise for 15 minutes a day. The effects can be as powerful as taking an antidepressant.

5. Take two minutes to meditate and breathe. Pay attention to your inhale and exhale. It will focus your attention and lower stress.

I tried to do all five habits and recorded my efforts daily for 21 days last month. I just kept a log in a note in my iPhone where I documented results at night. The only ones I did religiously for three weeks were listing three new gratitudes each day, describing the most meaningful moment and thanking a person for a specific act each day. The 15 minutes of exercise was hit or miss. I completely failed on the meditating. That was very challenging.

About a third of my meaningful moments were with my children. The rest were through interactions at work, with friends or with people who were essentially strangers. It was revealing to keep track of which moments actually moved me during the day.

And, the researchers were absolutely correct. While I was committed to this task, I became more attuned to the good things, no matter how small. I spent more minutes in my day contemplating the positive. I felt more grateful and engaged with people and connected to the meaning in my life.

A few times, I struggled to come up with a meaningful moment or a different person to thank. On the days I was very tired, it felt like a chore. But overall, I think it lifted my spirit in a way that had been missing for a while.

When things looked especially bleak, this happiness project was an antidote.

The only defense we have against the at-times overwhelming and random pain in this life is belligerent happiness.

"How can one sentence make a city go crazy?"

To my fourth-grader, the grand jury decision and its aftermath looked like a simple cause-and-effect situation. Initially, this prompted an obvious response: There's never an excuse to damage property, steal or hurt another person. Those are criminal acts committed by a few vandals and thieves.

But a complete answer of why this decision has angered so many people is more complicated to explain, although just as vital.

We watched the grand jury decision on television with our young children because they needed to see it. Both had heard classmates talking about it in school and on the bus during the day. Moreover, they had heard the background chatter of news reports since August, when Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson.

They've read front-page headlines at the breakfast table that prompted obvious questions: Why did a police officer shoot this teenager? Why so many times? What really happened?

Often, we didn't have the answers, but told them that people were working to figure it out. We want our children to have faith in the bedrock institutions of our country. But they also must learn that, like the humans that comprise them, institutions and systems are imperfect.

The specters of police brutality and riots have been the backdrop to the start of the school year in the St. Louis area. There's been a collective sense of holding one's breath, a palpable current of anxiety.

Life is filled with teachable moments, but few as stark and close-to-home as this. We focus most of our energy on teaching our children the basic skills they need to learn -- reading, writing, arithmetic. But it's our history that teaches them how to understand their world. One of the critical lessons a parent can teach a child is how to understand a situation from different perspectives.

Race is deceptively uncomplicated in my children's young lives so far. They have relatives who are white, black and brown. Their middle-class lives bounce along in the typical bubble of school, after-school activities and parentally coordinated social gatherings. Brown's death and the aftermath have been a view outside that narrow world.

In a manner typical of her generation, the sixth-grader took a picture of the screen while prosecutor Bob McCulloch announced there would be no charges against Officer Darren Wilson. It was a moment that required her own documentation.

The kids didn't say much in the moment. None of us did. We sat there processing our own emotions, trying to make sense of what was unfolding. Despite the exhortations to always be talking to our children, sometimes it's better to listen.

And if no one is ready to say much yet, it can be enough just to be near.

My son's big question about the city going crazy came the next morning; he had watched a few minutes of burning buildings and rioting on television before we made him go to bed. It's now our job to help him see the bigger picture of how this particular decision fits into the history of this country, and the ongoing civil rights struggle for equal rights and protection under the law. More than three months of demonstrations and the boiling-over anger on the streets started with one young's man death, but it's about more than one person.

Certainly, we have told them countless times before that not every child has schools as good as the ones they attend. Not every child grows up with parents who can spend as much time taking care of them. Not every child gets the same opportunities as their peers.

This time, we have to say: Not everyone is treated the same way by police officers or courts.

In some cases, people are still not treated fairly because of the color of their skin. That unfairness can make people angry. When people protest, they want to make others pay attention to why they are upset and try to change the way things work. That's a right protected by the Constitution in our country. The challenge is allowing people that right while keeping other people safe. There are people taking advantage of people's anger and making a bad situation worse.

It's scary for children to witness chaos and unrest. We can reassure them that we will do our best to protect them. We can help them make sense of confusing and tragic events by reminding them of the social progress our country has made and how long it took to get there.

Within the darkest chapters of our national narrative, there are stories of hope and resilience.

When we tell our children how far we've come, we remind ourselves how much further they can take us.