The use of humour to create close family bonds and diffuse unpleasant situations has saved us as parents many times from doing or saying things we might have regretted and making a bad situation even worse!
My husband and I have raised two boys. Being three years apart, they honestly thought it was their right to fight because ‘that is what brother do.’ At one point, my oldest son even explained to me all his friends fought with their younger brothers, so he figured it was just normal behaviour. From my point of view, I did not care that other brothers fought! I did not want them to fight and would often say to him that I did not want to add referee to my job description. I wanted to create a home that was calm and safe. Although this is not funny, I tried to make the expectation clear.
I want to share some humorous memories that we still laugh about years later! First, when trying to stop a fight in the car one day, my husband started very serious but ended the reprimand in a comical voice. Our boys were caught off guard and began to laugh! My husband repeated the phrase several times, to the point that we were laughing so hard the fight ended. Another fabulous memory we have of my husband making us all laugh until our stomachs hurt was one News Years Eve when we played video games together. The game was a karaoke-style game, and my husband sang Brick House.
I can not improvise as well as my husband, and thinking of my sense of humour was extremely challenging at first, but I can undoubtedly make light of situations and laugh at myself. For example, I love my eggs soft, and because of that, I often end up wearing some of the yokes. It just so happens that driving home from Banff on our first anniversary, I sprayed myself. My husband was not sure how I was going to react, but I could see he was biting his tongue, and I knew he wanted to say, “the yokes on you.” as a joke, but he was not sure I was in the right frame of mind for that. I was! I started to laugh and stole his line! I am sure he was a bit shocked! Now, when I get to play with my older granddaughter, and things get spilt, I shrug my shoulders, giggle a bit and say, ‘No big deal. We can just clean that up.’ I love it when clean up turns into a dance recital.
The word humour could be interchanged with a pleasant surprise! As hard as it might be not to get frustrated, just try to lighten up a situation that could escalate. Diffuse it using your strengths to create that element of surprise. Sing, dance, use funny voices, crack a joke, do something to make yourself laugh because I am sure your child will laugh with you!