Playful Parenting: Discipline with Humor

How many of us have driven spoonfuls of pureed beets into our babies mouths while making ridiculous faces and either train or airplane noises, sometimes with mixed results?  That is playful parenting.

I remember, when fighting a toddler to get dressed, pretending that his hand had gotten lost inside the sleeve.  Peeking down the hole, I’d chant: “Where is it?  Where is Joey’s hand.”  Then when it comes out, I would jump back in surprise, sometimes pretending that it had hit me.  “There it is.  I found your hand!”  They could hardly wait to hide their other hand in the other sleeve.  Being playful kept it from turning into a contest of wills.

Parenting guru Jane Nelsen says humor is a key tool to successful discipline.  It helps break the negative mood not just for children, but for grown-ups too.  It’s a lot less stressful, and a lot more fun, to use humor and play to connect with your child as you set limits and establish discipline.  It helps build a connection between parent and child.  “When everyone’s stressed out and overloaded—that’s when we need play the most,” says psychologist Larry Cohen, PhD.¹   It’s almost impossible to remain angry with someone who is making you laugh.

“We don’t want out kids to just be obedient,” Nelsen says.  “We want them to do things because they feel capable, because they want to cooperate, because they understand.”²  Being able to laugh paves the way to ease tension and become more effective in solving problems.  Humor can get a point across with love instead of being preachy or nagging.  “One couple was worried that their son was getting home past curfew.  After calmly reviewing with him the reasons for a curfew and being sure he know of their love, the parents and son agreed that he needed an incentive to arrive home on time.  Before his next date, the son found a clock and a note in the entry.  

The note read: ‘I am your new best friend.  I love you and get worried when you’re out late, so I’m set for your curfew time.  Please come home in time to turn off my alarm before I wake everyone up!’

“Because it catches kids off guard, humor can result in increased cooperation from them.  It cuts through their resistance without having to get angry and nag.”³

You may be thinking: But shouldn’t disciplining children be—well—disciplinary?  Isn’t responding to bad behavior with play just rewarding it? 

It’s not a question of control vs. permissiveness.  Play is a tool that allows us to be kind, firm, and respectful.  Compare discipline to food, says Cohen.  A child gets cranky when they’re hungry (I do too).  “Just because they’re cranky doesn’t mean we’re not going to feed them”, he states.  “Connection is also a basic human need—children will literally die without it.  It’s not optional, and it doesn’t make sense to think of [connection through play] as a reward for bad behavior.”  He says that bad behavior comes from disconnection, so the solution is re-connection.”

So how do we connect with play and discipline with humor?

1.  Turn it into a game.

   "In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.  Just find the fun and 'snap' the job's a game," sang Mary Poppins.

That’s what we do when pureed beets become an airplane, or hands play hide-and-seek in a shirt sleeve.  I often play peek-a-boo with an antsy child sitting in the pew ahead of me at church.  One dad, when his children were arguing, pretended to be a reporter interviewing each one for their opinion (and exaggerating their views), breaking the tension.

Your children can play musical chairs, or spin the bottle and the loser chooses a chore from the chore jar.  The winner puts the chairs away.

Teens can play-act problems, such as arguments over appropriate clothes, or curfew time, with the teen taking the place of the parent and the parent taking point of view of the teen.  Exaggerate, be goofy.  It helps to see how our position might be preposterous, and also perceive a little of what they are feeling.

2.  Distractions

Chasing (I’m going to get your toes) or pretending you are going to tickle them, singing a silly song, making funny faces, using silly hats or fake glasses, all are distractions.  One mother pretended to read her child’s horoscope, predicting that he would stop procrastinating and do his chores.

3.  Make the bad guy be something that your child loves. 

My grandson had a crazy ostrich puppet.  That puppet could tell him anything, and he would do it.  

Animate stuffed toys.  “Look, the stuffed kitty wants to brush it’s teeth.  ‘Oh, I can’t do it.  My paws won’t hold the brush.  Show me how to brush my teeth.’”  

A teacher I knew had a sock monkey.  Every time she needed to give directions to her students, that monkey came out and announced the instructions.

Puppets and stuffed animals are a good way to teach school-aged children, especially if it is interactive.  For instance, if you are teaching manners, let them be the bear that is over-the-top polite and prim.  You can be the pig that is a boorish slob with terrible manners.  It should all be super silly and exaggerated.

4.  Turn the joke on yourself.

Little children love slap stick.  Pretend to fall down, do a fake “Waah” cry.  Pretend you are stepping on leggos when the toys need picking up, hopping around yelling “Ow, ow!”  (Let’s hope it is really pretend).

My daughter once told me I was worse than Cinderella’s wicked step-mother when I gave her a chore.  (She was only four.  She is now 50 and I have forgiven her.)  What could I have done?  Demanded an apology, put her in time out, spanked her, given her more chores to do?  Or could I have started looking for singing mice to help her, or laughed evilly and told her that after the chore I had assigned she should feed the chickens, scrub the floor with a scrub brush, and bring me breakfast in bed, 

or maybe I could have looked secretive and say, “Shh!  You can’t tell anyone my secret name.”  I don’t remember what I did, but it probably wasn’t one that eased tension and made her more co-operative.

5.  Use a funny voice

Boom your request to straighten the front room in an operatic voice.  It’s even better if you can’t sing.  Or use a cartoon voice.  One mother reminds her children of etiquette errors by saying, “Miss Manners called to remind you that super heroes never talk with food in their mouths.”  Or she affects a Southern accent to remind her daughter, “Honeychile, a lady neveh entertains a gentleman in her bedroom.”

6.  Use play

Sometimes when you dress a child, she acts as if you are torturing her.  She resists with every fiber of her being and turns into a writhing slippery eel.  You could get some “dress-up” clothes and play getting dressed in them.  

Then pretend her shirt is a beautiful ball gown, or his shoes are army boots.  He could practice dressing his stuffed elephant.  She could pretend she is her Barbie doll and you are dressing her.  Or you could have them put your jacket on you before you put their jacket on them.  Laughing and goofiness and play is the way kids release tension.  It helps Moms, too.

7.  Give voices to pets and inanimate objects and let them make the point for you. 

Their dog could leave a note: “Please don’t forget to feed me.  I get so hungry I could eat a squirrel.”  Or a bed could beg to be made.  A flying paper airplane could send a reminder of a chore.

8.  Exaggerate the situation.

You could walk into a messy playroom, clasp your head, and exclaim, “Oh, the horror.  The horror!” 

9.  Use reverse psychology.

In the middle of a melt-down, say, “Whatever you do, don’t giggle.”  Then pretend to be a loving kitten, purring and meowing and rubbing against him.  Keep reminding him not to smile.

10.           Use fantasy.

I bet you wish we had a magic table clearer.  Maybe we could invent one.  What would it do?  Or, wouldn’t it be fun to have Mary Poppins snap her fingers and have everything put itself away?

11.           Play music.

March tunes help with physical chores.  Choose a song for them to listen to while brushing their teeth so they know how long to brush.

Now, I’m not a humorous person.  Quips don’t come to my mind.  I can’t remember jokes.  I don’t naturally see the humor in a situation.  I don’t know how to be funny when I’m laying down the law to my children.  Perhaps, for me, the answer is just to lighten up.  I need to remember that it isn’t life or death if they keep a clean bedroom.  It will certainly make life easier for them in the future, but there are a lot of happy messy people.

But perhaps humor isn’t just something you are born with or not.  Maybe it is a skill that can be developed, like playing the piano, or gardening, or needlepoint (although why someone would want to stab a piece of cloth a thousand times is beyond me).  See my little attempt at humor there?  If you love needlepoint, I apologize. 

Children have to learn how to joke—re: the four-year-old who drives you crazy with pointless knock-knock jokes.  It is part of language development, so a sense of humor can be further developed as an adult.

Learning to laugh at yourself is a prerequisite.  When you make a mistake, laugh at yourself and figure out how to turn it into a story later.  To see the humor in a situation, you need to take a step back and put it in perspective.  One daughter, in the throes of toilet training her own daughter asked me how to do it.  I told her I had eight ways that didn’t work, but all my children were toilet trained now as adults.  A sense of humor gives you resilience and helps put things in perspective.

Prepare ahead of time.  Think about problems you often face with your child and decide ahead of time possible ways to handle it with humor.

Practice, practice, practice.

Ask for help.  Ask your family to find something funny about a family problem.  Encourage them to help each other to see humor in future problems.  Learn as a family.

Role play potential problems.  Start with this one to break the ice.  You are at a party and someone points out you have on one black shoe and one brown shoe.  You feel embarrassed, stupid, angry.  What can you say with humor?  “Oh, yes, and I have another pair just like them at home.”

You can start serious discussions with your teens with a relevant joke to break the tension between you and your child.

But beware the jabberwocky!  

Never ever use humor that puts your child down, is hurtful, sarcastic, disrespectful, or is veiled criticism.  It doesn’t improve situations.  It can cause your child to become defensive and strengthen the walls between you, rather than lowering them.  Even a joke that makes light of someone’s physical or emotional pain, such as “Did you crack the sidewalk when you fell?”, doesn’t acknowledge the child’s hurt, which can be buried inside and erupt later in a worse form.  Never use humor that irritates, provokes, annoys, or teases.

 “There is both dignified and undignified humor,” said “The Spoken Word” speaker Richard L. Evans.  “There is raucous, loud-mouthed humor, uncouth humor.  There is evil, offensive humor.  And there is high-minded, delightful humor.”⁴

“Parenting can often feel like an unrewarding job as you struggle with your children’s attitudes and behaviors.  [Delightful] humor can help to turn the job of parenting into a more enjoyable, fun and energizing one.  

It is a skill that is well-worth cultivating.”⁵

1 The Lighter Side of Parenting by Gina Shaw from the WebMD Archives

2 When All Else Fails, Parent With Humor by Eve Pearlman from the WebMD Archives

3 The Benefits of a Good Sense of Humour

4 Richard Evans’ Quote Book Salt Lake City: Publisher Press, 1971

5 Teri Mahoney, Certified Parenting Educator