In 2014, just months before I decided to leave the church, we spent a wonderful week on an Alaskan Cruise with my adult siblings, their spouses, and my parents. A highlight of the trip was going to shows put on by a comedian - David Naster. He had some pretty great sets, but being the serious type that I am, I really perked up when he got a little serious - about being silly.
He talked about how effective jokes can be at diffusing tough situations like heartache or just plain meanness. He gave some examples, like a teacher joking back at a student who was trying to put her down, or overweight kids who responded to teasing with a clever comeback instead of retreating to a corner to cry.
I appreciated his perspective because ... I'm usually the one who retreats to a corner to cry. And with my kids, I really try hard to be empathetic when it comes to hard experiences because I think all feelings need to be honored in order to move forward in a healthy way. Nevertheless, he really had a point with the humor bit because I know that responding like I have in the past certainly hasn't led to less teasing and more respect. Maybe there's a time to use humor and later a time to receive empathy from those you love and trust.
So I wondered ... could we help teach our kids to learn to respond to some situations with humor?
Who knows, but it made for an enjoyable and therapeutic (maybe?) family night.
Sidenote: We Will Rock You made for an awesome opening song. (Bumh bumh chhh, bumh bumh chhh).
I asked each of the kids to take a piece of paper and write down a time when someone hurt their feelings or made them angry. They didn't necessarily have to write the name of the person - it might have just been "my friend" or "my boss" and just a short description of what the person said or did.
We put all the papers in a bowl. Then we divided into teams of 2 people. Each team took out 2 papers (hopefully not their own). Then that team had to go figure out a way to act out the situations described ... with a punchline ending. In other words, one person was the tease/meanie, and the other had to respond with their best joke/comeback.
We came back together and role played what we had practiced for the rest of the family. I don't know why, but my kids love games like this - any kind of acting or charades. And they seemed to like the chance to talk about the times when their feelings had been hurt and what their actual response had been vs. what it might be today.
Some examples:
My boss asks me what am I going to do to bring in a lot more business by the end of the month (when I'm already working super hard).
My friend called me a "butthead."
Mom yelled at me (Me being the dog - she participated, too, since we have an odd number in our family. Admittedly, this could have been from one of the kids, too.)
A teacher got angry at me for being in a room that she thought I wasn't supposed to be in, but I had permission to be there.
And then we ate ice cream because if there is anything we believe, it is that Family Night is NOT Family Night without refreshments. Amen!
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