Whether your child gets the giggles from watching a commercial or LOLs at their own jokes, creating a house full of laughter can relieve stress and make family life more fun. Studies also have found that sharing a laugh with your kids fosters a stronger parent-child relationship.
Even if you have kids with different appreciations of humor, there are ways you can observe and nurture your child’s sense of humor as they grow and learn to communicate. Here are five ways to encourage more laughter in your house.
1. Engage in Age-Appropriate Laughter
Though infants can smile just twelve hours after being born (and babies can laugh at a few months old), your child’s ability to understand and laugh at jokes takes time to evolve. Playing “peek-a-boo” is funny to eight-month-olds as they learn object permanence, while two-year-olds find gibberish talk amusing as they start to understand real language…and grasp that it is nonsense. When your kid is six, you can break out jokes that involve word play (such as: ‘What’s the best month for a parade? March!’, or ‘Why do dragons sleep during the day? So they can fight knights!’). Potty humor will delight three-year-olds, but it’s best to save off-color jokes for teenagers.
2. Make Home a Self-Esteem Boosting Environment
Children with low self esteem often feel restricted and confined, and in no position to create or appreciate humor. Praising your child’s physical and social accomplishments—as well as academic achievements and skill-based ones—will give them the confidence needed to enjoy being silly. Avoid ridiculing your kids, which will only make them less confident and more protective of themselves. Games and activities that foster imagination, pretend play and curiosity should all be encouraged.
3. Use Laughter for Compliance, Discipline and to Lessen Tension
Instead of yelling at your kids to complete tasks such as cleaning up toys or their room, making light of the situation to show your displeasure shows that you can be fun but firm. For example, pretending you forgot how something in your house works can encourage your kids to help you complete tasks, while making funny noises as they put away toys can make chores enjoyable. If they don’t want to leave the playground, challenging them to a race can ward off a tantrum. Similarly, making jokes or doing something silly after a stressful family argument can diffuse tension, returning the vibe of your home to that of a happy place.
4. Ask (or Observe) What Makes Your Kids Laugh
If you have a funny child but a son or daughter who rarely laughs, organize a family humor night and ask your kids to bring a joke, game or anecdote from school they find amusing. Asking them how they chose each item and what they find funny about it is an easy way to find out what makes each person laugh. It’s possible your child might prefer deadpan humor or have a dry wit. Realistic, perfectionist and left-brained analytical kids are often a balance to those around them.
If you think their sense of humor was stunted by a particular incident—like bullying, trauma or the personality dynamics within your household—recognize that your child’s less-funny personality might be a product of their environment. If these outside influences are impacting your child’s ability to be silly and find humor in anything, consider seeking a therapist to help them overcome these feelings.
5. Set Boundaries on Humor
By the time your kids are in fourth or fifth grade, boys will laugh at jokes with violent or sexual undertones, while girls love jokes that reinforce their place in the “cool” crowd or about boyfriends. Both are ways to test cultural norms or acceptable behavior. But jokes can go wrong, and telling exploitative jokes that make children feel smaller—or ignoring an opportunity to bond with your kids to create a joke instead—aren’t helpful. Call out your kids when you see humor done wrong, and make sure all humor is respectful of your child’s unique personality.
