I try to laugh at least once a day with our girls — not just a reserved smile and chuckle, but a full-release, uninhibited belly laugh. In those moments, the gap between mother and daughter narrows and we are experiencing the love and joyfulness of life in the very same way.

Laughing is one way to teach our children how to not take themselves too seriously. They are learning how to express emotion and joy. My youngest daughter understood her first complex joke around two years old. We were sitting at the breakfast table eating honeydew melon when John turned to her and said “Honey, ‘dew’ you want some melon?” A glimmer of understanding struck her face and she started laughing, repeating the joke and holding up some melon to offer it to John. It was such a precious moment – we were all in it together. You could almost feel her natural sense of humor expanding in the shared joy.

It was around her third birthday that she first created her own joke. (For some help setting up the joke: Rhea adores her grandfather. She spends time with him regularly and is familiar with some of his hobbies – like playing the card game bridge and racquetball.) She held her forefinger across her upper lip to imitate his mustache and said in a low voice “Hi, I’m Grandpa and I like to play bridge.” She has received countless chuckles from this one and even expanded her repertoire to include “Hi, I’m Grandpa and I like to play racquetball.”) We have asked her at times if she’d like to share her joke to help her become comfortable with performing in a small group or making a connection to another person. She has imaginatively created other extensions of this joke – a double-handed mustache and goatee to reference a good friend.

Silliness helps children to become comfortable with their bodies and creative play. In watching my comfort with singing in a public bathroom stall, skipping down a sidewalk, making goofy voices while reading a book, creating new silly lyrics to a familiar tune and dancing to a good song on the radio, they are learning the appropriate time and space to let go and have fun. They are seeing that joy and fun are valued highly in our family.

There are so many ways to engage your children in silly fun:

• Building play forts in the living room with the kids
• Making a cave under your bed sheets by straightening your legs into the air
• Making up games after they get out of the shower or bath (peek-a-boo out of the bed’s sheets letting each child exclaim what they see and how they feel: “A bear – oh, you’re so cuddly, let me give you a hug!” or “A purple rain cloud — ah, we’re getting wet!”)
• Playing balloon football (lying on our backs kicking balloons with our feet)
• Making a chorus line with our legs on the bed
• Enjoying family cuddles — a “fuddle” as we affectionately refer to it
• Making silly voices when reading
• Playing on playground equipment with your children
• Sharing funny faces across the room during quiet time