60 Times Parents Brought Joy To Their Children’s Lives And Deserved To Go Viral (New Pics)

Whether we’ve had fun parents of our own or not, we’ve all seen the happy-go-lucky mom with the perpetual smile on her face, or the dad who loved to belly laugh at every chance. 

They’re the beloved parents everyone loves to be around. And as you may have also noticed, they appear to have a healthy influence on their children.

Experts have deemed humor as an effective parenting tool. According to Dr. Benjamin Levi, a pediatrics and humanities professor at Penn State University, it has a positive effect on the quality of their relationships with their children. 

“Humor can teach people cognitive flexibility, relieve stress, and promote creative problem solving and resilience,” Dr. Levi said.

To further examine the effect of humor on children, Dr. Levi conducted a study that surveyed 312 people aged 18 to 35. More than half of respondents raised by parents who used humor (71.8%) agreed that it was an effective child-rearing tool. 

Most of the respondents also stated that they planned to use humor with their own children and deemed it to have “more potential benefit than harm.”

Social psychologist Dr. Susan Newman further noted that humor protects the parent-child bond. This is especially true during frustrating moments when you can turn brewing tension into laughter. 

“Sprinkling in humor along with your scolding can balance feelings of shame that your child will likely have already,” Dr. Newman wrote.

Dr. Newman also suggested quirky activities to embrace humor and include it more in one’s approach to parenting. One of her tips was to laugh at yourself when you make a mistake or do something deemed as “dumb.” Another would be to act silly and use it as a signalling tool when you disapprove of your child’s actions, instead of yelling. 

“The more you can call up your sense of humor and put the problem in perspective, the more likely it is that the parent-child bond will be strengthened,” Dr. Newman said.