Parenting with humor

PARENTING WITHOUT HUMOR IS LIKE BEING AN ACCOUNTANT WHO SUCKS AT MATH~~ ANONYMOUS

When I read this quote I couldn’t help but smile because we never tend to imagine humor would be a part of day to day parenting..those who can achieve to get some smiles out of their day with children have achieved a difficult skill which will go a long way in helping them maintain their sanity as children progress from infancy to toddlerhood and onto elementary and middle school years. I am sure you must have seen a video on youtube that has been going around for a while now. In it a mom says all the things moms say to their kids throughout the day every day all life long..in just under 3 minutes. It is quite hilarious and has been watched by millions of people world over. It basically underlines the fact that parenting is univerally the same. Irrespective of the language you speak and culture you belong to, these words are 'univeral truths' when it comes to parenting. It is called the ‘Mum song’ or the ‘mom song’ and there are various versions of it. Here is the link if you would like to see it now

Humor helps makes day to day parenting bearable. I did not know that there are actually web pages devoted to parenting humor with lots of quotes, jokes, videos and stories that any parent of a pre-schooler must definitely subscribe to. Here are a couple I found hilarious http://www.the-preschool-professor.com/parenting-humor.html and also try https://www.pinterest.com/virginiababy/3parenting-humor/

Then there are parenting experts who advice uses of humor in disciplining. According to Dr.Larry Cohen, a play therapist and the author of Playful Parenting, it is a lot more fun, to use humor and play to connect with your child as you set limits and establish discipline. Breaking the tension with silliness helps you form a bond with your child. Especially works from toddlerhood up to kids age six or seven.

What about adolescents? They can be really touchy and making fun of a teenager can be risky as they are quick to feel belittled. However, making fun of yourself as a parent can help lighten up the difficult task of parenting a teenager. Carl Pickhardt, Ph.D has an awesome blog on ‘Surviving your child’s adolescence’ where he wrote a post on parenting adolescents with humor. Check it out at https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/surviving-your-childs-adolescence/201311/keeping-sense-humor-when-parenting-adolescents

As I researched for this article, I found that lots of parents actually have a fun-loving attitude towards their parenting. They write about their fun parenting anecdotes on Facebook pages, pintrest and twitter. Huffington Post actually publishes something called “Funniest parenting Tweets. What Moms and Dads said on Twitter this week”. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/09/funniest-parenting-tweets_n_6443030.html

Do you wonder what are some of the ways to introduce humor in your parenting? There are resources out there for that too. One that caught my eye was on the website :

http://www.parentfurther.com/resources/enewsletter/archive/humor-in-parenting

If you have any ideas about how humor helps in your day to day parenting, do comment below.

#parentingwithhumor #momsong #parentingblog