Parenting Advice: Laughter is the Best Medicine

Children love to play and laugh though out their days at home or school. Finding the time to laugh with your child may be the best thing you can do for the relationship. Encourage your child to develop a good humor by laughing at the jokes they make up on the spot. This will help them grow confident and build their self-esteem. If you do not get the joke you can ask why they think the joke is funny. Honest feedback will help them develop funnier jokes. You can take them to your local library and have them pick up a few joke books. Then you two can head back home or out to the park and read it together for a good laugh. You can take turns reading jokes to each other from the books or make up a few yourself. Kids are not the only ones who can make up a joke. If they make a joke at the expense of another person, you may want to discuss the difference between making fun of yourself and making fun of others. In turn try not to make jokes at your child's expense, you need to set an example that they can follow.

Learning to laugh at ones self is a great quality to attain. You can set an example by laughing at your own mistakes. This is a great way to help reduce your own stress as well as your child's since they will notice this habit. Laughing may make the situation seem lighter and easier to work through. By doing this you will keep the whole ordeal in perspective instead of blowing it out of proportion. More importantly, your child will be better prepared to handle teasing, adversity and bullies when they can do this for themselves.

Most importantly laughing will bring you closer together as a family. It will help you feel happier and more in tune to what your child is thinking. You can have your family find different ways to laugh, by playing games or holding special event days. You can invite their grandparents over for a slumber party and make ice cream creations. Then start a staring contest, arm wrestling contest, thumb wars contest and have a prize for the winners. You can end the night with a mass pillow fight slash tickle fight. You can have a backwards day where every one wears their clothes backwards and eat breakfast for supper. You can all watch your best funny movies and act out the best parts together after the movies done. You could hold a contest to see who can make the other members of the family laugh more by doing something funny. You can help your child produce skits or shows for other people in your family and video tape so you can keep it forever. Then when your children are older and have kids of their own, you can have a home movie night with them all. Their kids will be able to enjoy the good times you had with their parents when they were their age. The family that laughs together stays together!