The power of dad jokes: Fun as the ingredient for healthy parenting

During parenting, we often come across situations where we may start to lose our cool. However, for the ones who ditch the anger and find the fun twist in it, it helps them to become better parents. Children may throw tantrums or bring their problems to us repeatedly – the way we handle them and teach them the path to find solutions, helps them to become better individuals. The power of dad jokes is immense, after all. A study concluded recently that funny parents raise healthier and happier children.
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In a media release, Dr. Benjamin Levi, professor of pediatrics and humanities at Penn State College of Medicine and senior author of the study stated that humour is an important ingredient in parenting. It helps in teaching cognitive flexibility, relieving stress and promoting the idea of finding creative solutions to problems.
The study was conducted in 312 individuals between the ages of 18 and 45. They were asked about their experiences of being brought up in their homes where humour was an important element. Some said that their parents used humour to bring them up, while others stated that they consciously use humour in their own styles of parenting.
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The striking finding in the survey was the relationship between humour and quality of the relationship shared between the parent and the children. People who stated that their parents used humour in their parenting – of them, 50.5% said that they have a good relationship with their parents. 44.2% said that they think their parents did a good job bringing them up.
Lucy Emery, the study’s first author and a pediatrics resident at Boston Children’s Hospital drew the similarities between the use of humour in business relationships. She stated that in business, use of humour can smash hierarchies and create better collaborative environments. While parenting and business are different spaces, humour can help in diffusing tension, removing hierarchy and make parents more approachable for children, further cementing their relationship.
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