Want better relationship with your kids? Use more humour, says new study

Use of humour by parents has a very positive impact on their relationship with children, according to a new study that highlighted the importance of laughing with your kids.

The pilot study led by Penn State University in the US had two major findings: That parents who used humour had a better relationship with their kids, and that children of parents with good humour sense considered their relationship more positively when they grew up.

"Humour can teach people cognitive flexibility, relieve stress, and promote creative problem solving and resilience," ScienceDaily quoted Benjamin Levi, the lead author of the study, as saying.

"My father used humour and it was very effective. I use humour in my clinical practice and with my own children," said Levi, a professor of paediatrics at Penn State College of Medicine. "The question became, how does one constructively use humour?"

How the study was done

For the study published in PLOS One journal, the researchers surveyed 312 respondents aged between 18 and 45.

Over 50 per cent of respondents said their parents used humour. And 71.8% agreed that humour can be an effective parenting tool. Most respondents do or plan to use humour with their children and believe that it has more potential benefit than harm,

Among the children who grew up with humourous parents, 50.5% said they had a good relationship with them, and 44.2% reported they felt their parents did a good job raising them, said ScienceDaily in a report on the study.

This was in stark contrast to those whose parents did not use humour. Out of those who responded that their parents didn't use humour, only 2.9% reported a good relationship with them later in life. Only 3.6% of these respondents said they thought their parents did a good job raising them.

"My hope is that people can learn to use humour as an effective parenting tool, not only to diffuse tension but develop resilience and cognitive and emotional flexibility in themselves and model it for their children," Levi said.

"There's an interesting parallel between business and parenting, which are both hierarchical. In business, humour has been shown to help reduce hierarchies, create better environments for collaboration and creativity and diffuse tension," said first author of the study Lucy Emery.

"While parent-child relationships are more loving than business relationships, stressful situations happen a lot when parenting. Humour can help diffuse that tension and hierarchy and help both parties feel better about a stressful situation."

(With inputs from agencies)