Rain wasn’t a common thing in the little Nevada town where I raised my kids. When it did rain, the water would run down our quiet street. I took those opportunities to take my kids outside to dance and twirl as we caught raindrops in our upturned mouths. Sometimes, we’d lay down and roll down the street or race popsicle sticks. We’d be soaked to the bone and laughing our heads off. It was a fabulous time of bonding. They still remember it to this day.
As moms, we tend to focus on all the things that need to get done, which can make the relationship more about accomplishing things instead of enjoying each other. Teaching responsibility is an important part of parenting, but teaching our children to laugh is also important. Laughter reduces stress, brings greater connection, and creates lasting memories. So if you’re ready for more chuckles but feel like your funny bone is a little achy, here are 10 other ideas for how to make kids laugh.
Stories in the Round
Create a story together taking turns adding one sentence. My family did this around the campfire. My older two girls were 14 months apart while my youngest was five years younger. The older two could make up more elaborate sentences than she could, so we would let her start the story. Every time, she’d use the most menacing voice a tiny girl could muster and say, “One night, there was a wolf.” That sentence has since become a family joke.
Embarrassing Confession
What’s funnier than those moments when we accidentally make a fool out of ourselves? There’s the time I walked halfway into the men’s room at a concert arena before I realized it. Or the time I got into the wrong car in the parking lot. Tell your kids about a time you embarrassed yourself and watch how it creates a connection point with them.
Costume Dinner
Costumes aren’t just for Halloween. Set a date to wear costumes to dinner. It could be that everyone dresses for a specific theme with corresponding food like cowboy outfits with BBQ ribs. Another option is for everyone to wear different costumes and share why they chose them. For the best laughs, have everyone wear the silliest thing they can come up with.
Dance Off
Put on your best dance party tunes and take turns challenging each other to see who can dance the funniest. Jimmy Fallon has Youtube dance battles like this with celebrities. Some of the funniest moves I’ve seen are pretending to be eggs and bacon, trying to get through a spider web, or pretending you don’t have a wedgie all while dancing.
Cartoon Character Imitation
Challenge each other to do your best impression of a cartoon character. The impression doesn’t have to be good. Just trying to do it is funny.
The Ever-Reliable Mad Libs
There are many online versions available in addition to the paper versions available at retailers. As you’re asking your kids for nouns and verbs and adjectives, let them use bathroom humor if they want.
Freaky Friday Switch
As a kid, I watched the Disney movie Freaky Friday, in which a mom and her daughter’s minds are switched into each other’s bodies. It’s a funny movie and a hilarious idea to recreate at home. Pretend to be each other for half an hour.
Song Speak
My kids laugh at me because I often sing lines from a song when points in our conversation bring them to mind. So try suddenly singing everything you want to say instead of using regular speech. You can either communicate through known songs the way Bumble Bee did in Transformers or use a singing voice to talk to each other.
Name Change
I’ve done this with my kids. We gave ourselves different names to use for the evening. For added hilarity, change the pets’ names too. Little kids especially enjoy the idea of having a different name. My middle daughter liked it so much she made us call her by the fake name for several months—maybe even a year!
Mom Surprise
Every once in a while, especially when things were tense, I would do or say something out of character for myself and completely unexpected. I would smirk and throw a pretend temper tantrum. I would say booger, fart, or some other word I didn’t normally use as an expletive. Sometimes, I would belch really loudly. It’s completely out of character for me to do that. It always caught my kids off guard and would break up the tension. We’d all laugh and then be able to relax and continue with whatever we were doing at the time.
What are some things that always seem to bring more laughter into your family life? Here are more ideas for how to make kids laugh from our fatherhood program, All Pro Dad.
