A Parenting Practice I Can Live By

"Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness."

-The Family: A Proclamation to the World

Last week, Scotty and I reached a point of breakdown in our parenting. After a long day of fighting battles with the kids, we climbed into bed feeling defeated and useless. Our kids have been rough lately, and we feel like our best efforts at nurturing them are failing. As we laid in bed, we talked about what we can change and how we can have a better impact on our children's lives. 

The next day, I was sitting in my van waiting for Nicky to come out of school, and I was reading a research study on psychological control for my parenting class (that's right! I'm enrolled in a parenting class for school right now. Ironic, eh?) I briefly looked up from my reading and noticed there was an older gentleman standing in front of my van waving at me. I smiled and waved back, thinking Oh, boy! That guy must think I'm someone else. As I tipped my head back down toward my reading, the man walked over to my window, and I thought This is going to be so awkward when he realizes we don't know each other!

But instead, with a big smile on his face, he simply asked, "What are you reading?"

I read him the title of the document, "Violating the Self: Parental Psychological Control of Children and Adolescents." Then I said, "Boring, right?"

He laughed and told me that it was good for me to be studying something like that. Then he peeked in my van and counted my children, "One, two, three... How many more are you waiting for?" I told him I was waiting for one more. Then he said, "So you have four. That's a good start!"

He then told me that he and his wife have nine children. Then he did that thing that empty-nesters do where they take a moment of silence because they miss their kids, and "It all goes by so fast!" When he snapped back to the present, he told me that it's hard to be a parent and that I should never forget to make my kids laugh.

Then he walked away.

I sat there for a minute and considered calling after him, "Hey, wait! Did God send you?"

Because it seemed awfully suspicious that I'd spent the previous night praying to Heavenly Father for help with my children, and then a random stranger showed up to remind me to laugh with my kids.

In truth, laughter has been severely lacking in our home lately. I've been very stressed out, and, I know this is a shocking confession, but I can be a little unpleasant and uptight when I'm overwhelmed. Combine that with four energetic, strong-willed children, and it's really easy for things to go awry.

On average, children laugh 400 times a day, while adults laugh about 15 times (Palmer 2007). The mysterious man at my van was spot-on, we need to remember to laugh with our kids. I don't mean to suggest that laughter is the only element of good parenting, but it is a very important one that provides healing and connection for the parents and children.

President Ezra Taft Benson said, "Take time to be a real friend to your children... Talk with them, laugh and joke with them..."

To me, this speaks of an appropriate level of parent-to child friendship, in which the parent still provides the necessary guidance and nurturing, but in which the child and parent like each other and find joy in each other's company.

Research has documented that children are less aggressive and more sociable if they have parents (especially fathers) who are playful (Hart, Newell, and Haupt, 2012). Laughter and play go hand in hand.

In an Ensign article titled, "The Power of Laughter," Gary K. Palmer wrote of some of the benefits of laughter in the family. I love this article and highly recommend that you read it in its entirety (honestly, I want to quote the whole thing here), but for a quick summary, here are a ten reasons to encourage laughter in the home:

1. Laughter and play make us feel better. "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine" (Proverbs 17:22)
2. Humor and laughter help people live longer, happier lives; be more creative and productive; and have more energy with less physical discomfort.  
3. Humor reduces stress, fear, intimidation, embarrassment, and anger.
4. When a person laughs, blood pressure decreases, heart rate and respiration increase, the body releases endorphins, and depression declines.
5. Laughter makes our real personalities emerge.
6. We tend to like people we laugh with.
7. Laughter is always available, and it's FREE!
8. Laughter is like getting away without going away. It gives you a break.
9. Laughter improves communication and builds relationships because everyone laughs in the same language.
10. Your children will remember your humor much longer than they will the things you buy them.  

That last one makes me think of my grandpa who passed away six years ago. My grandpa loved to laugh, and he told a lot of jokes... over and over and over... We all rolled our eyes at our grandpa's jokes, and it wasn't uncommon for us to interrupt him and tell the condensed version to quickly ruin his punch line. When my grandpa passed away, we were obviously saddened, but I remember his funeral as a joyful occasion as we reflected back on his contagious sense of humor. There is nothing material about my grandpa that I'll remember more than his ability to make us laugh.

Thanks to the smiling, waving father of nine children (whom I suspect has a sense of humor quite like my grandpa's), I'll always remember now how important it is to laugh with my kids. That's a parenting practice I can live by!

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This post was inspired by "Parenting with Love, Limits, and Latitude: Proclamation Principles and Supportive Scholarship," by Craig H. Hart, Lloyd D. Newell, and Julie H. Haupt, published in Successful Marriages and Families: Proclamation Principles and Research Perspectives, 2012. This piece of writing is part of my Family Proclamation project for FAML 100 at Brigham Young University Idaho.