---
title: "Making Your Children Laugh Strengthens the Father-Child Bond, Research Finds: How to Use Humour at Every Age"
description: Research links shared laughter to more secure father-child bonds. Why dad jokes work and how to use humour with toddlers, children and teens.
author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-11-04T10:30:00.164Z
updated: 2026-11-04T12:17:02.046Z
canonical: https://richdadmagazine.com/article/humour-laughter-father-child-bond
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-10565625.webp
categories: Fatherhood, Family & Relationships
content_type: Guide
publication: Rich Dad Magazine
schema_type: Article
---

When researchers at the University of Ottawa asked 144 mothers and fathers to make their preschool child laugh for two minutes, in a room with no toys, both parents turned out to be equally good at it. The difference showed up afterwards. For fathers, the amount their child laughed was linked to how secure the child's attachment to them was. For mothers, it was not.

The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology by Sabrina Schmiedel, Jean-François Bureau and colleagues, followed families with children aged three to five, who visited the laboratory twice, about six months apart. Parents used much the same tricks: chasing, tickling, lifting, silly faces, funny voices and nonsense words. Fathers were more likely to surprise their child or playfully break a rule, for example by calling an object by the wrong name. Mothers leaned more on songs and nursery rhymes, and it was those familiar routines, rather than the laughter itself, that tracked with a secure bond with mum.

Bureau has said the work grew out of a frustration that most parenting support concentrates on reducing bad behaviour, when a good relationship also depends on enjoying time together. The authors are careful about what their data can show. The families were mostly well educated, the setting was artificial, and a single snapshot cannot prove that laughter causes security. It is still one of very few studies to watch, rather than ask, how parents make their children laugh.

## Adults raised with humour report better relationships with their parents

A 2024 study from Penn State, published in PLOS One, came at the question from the other end. Researchers surveyed 312 adults aged 18 to 45 about [whether their parents had used humour](https://richdadmagazine.com/article/how-often-do-children-laugh) when raising them. Nearly 72% said humour was an effective parenting tool. Among those who described a good relationship with their parents, 63% said their parents had used humour, compared with 3.7% who said their parents had not.

The senior author, Benjamin Levi, a professor of paediatrics and humanities, has said humour can teach cognitive flexibility, relieve stress and encourage creative problem solving and resilience. The lead author, Lucy Emery, compared family life with the workplace: in both, humour can ease the tension and hierarchy that build up in stressful moments, a point Rich Man explored in [the new science of humour at work](https://richdadmagazine.com/article/science-of-humour-laughter-lead-your-team). This was a pilot study based on people's memories, so it shows an association and nothing more. Its findings point the same way as the Ottawa work.

## Dad jokes teach children that embarrassment is survivable

Dad jokes have their own small body of research. Marc Hye-Knudsen, a humour researcher at Aarhus University in Denmark, argues in The Psychologist, the magazine of the British Psychological Society, that a dad joke is a pun that breaks only one rule: the rule against saying two things at once. That is why dad jokes are so mild and so safe to tell in front of children, and why they so often earn a groan instead of a laugh.

The groan is part of the point. Hye-Knudsen suggests that a father telling a joke so bad it is embarrassing is doing with words what rough-and-tumble play does with bodies: pushing a child to the edge of what they can handle, then showing them they are fine. For a child heading into adolescence, when embarrassment can feel enormous, learning that it is not fatal is a valuable lesson. The father has to be willing to look foolish first, and that is part of the lesson too.

Paul Silvia, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, has analysed more than 32,000 jokes from the r/dadjokes community on Reddit, in a study that has not yet been peer reviewed. The best-rated jokes relied on three devices: puns; literalisation, which turns a figure of speech into something physical; and pedantic humour, where the set-up is derailed by an answer that is far too literal. Jokes framed as a question and answer did better than one-liners, and people connected more with jokes featuring family members and animals. Steven Sultanoff, a past president of the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor, has compared the bonding effect of dad jokes with a game of peekaboo between a baby and a parent.

## How to use humour at every age

None of the research requires a father to be funny in the way a comedian is funny. It points to a few habits that suit each stage of childhood.

**Toddlers and preschoolers.** Between the ages of two and five, surprise and broken rules work best. Put a sock on your ear and insist it is a hat. Call the dog a cat and wait to be corrected. Chasing and gentle tickling were the most common techniques in the Ottawa study, and they worked for both parents. Stop the moment your child says stop, so the game stays safe.

**Primary school children.** From around six to eleven, children start to understand puns, and riddles become playground currency. Question-and-answer jokes suit them well, which matches what Silvia found about the best-rated dad jokes. Let them tell you jokes back, including ones that make no sense, and laugh at the attempt. A child who is laughed with learns that trying is safe.

**Teenagers.** Teenagers will roll their eyes, and that is the deal. Jokes at your own expense land better than any joke about them, their friends or their appearance. A well-timed bad pun in the car can ease a tense journey in a way a serious question often cannot, and it can open the door to the serious conversation later.

## When humour does harm

Humour helps when everyone is in on it and hurts when a child is the target. Jokes about weight, looks, intelligence or a child's friends teach the opposite of what the research describes. So does joking when a child is upset and needs to be taken seriously; the laughter can come later, once they feel heard. Sarcasm is a risk with younger children, who often take it literally.

The Penn State team has said the next step for researchers is to work out which kinds of humour help and which situations are riskier. Until they do, there is a simple test for any father: if your child is laughing with you, carry on, and if they are not, change course.

## Jokes to try at dinner tonight

These were written for Rich Dad, so nobody at the table will have heard them before.

- Why did the sat nav book a therapy session? It needed some direction in life.
- I was going to tell you a joke about the dishwasher, but it is not fully loaded yet.
- Why can teapots never keep a secret? They always end up spilling the tea.
- Why did the alarm clock get grounded? It kept going off without permission.
- Why did the homework go to bed early? It was exhausted from being put off all day.

Expect the groan. According to the research, the groan, the eye roll and the moment your child repeats the joke to a friend are all signs that it worked.