A new study from psychologists says humor might be the key to successful parenting
Good parenting is a joke.

Humor can help you bond with your child while also boosting their growing brain
Being a parent is tough. If you are one, you probably read many articles, watched a lot of videos, or asked other parents for advice regarding structure, discipline, consistency, and other qualities that go into raising a child. But researchers found something equally as important as all of those parental virtues: humor.
Researchers and psychologists from the Public Library of Science and the Penn State College of Medicine found that humor played a huge role in successful parenting in a recent study. In a survey of 312 parents or would-be parents, 55% reported that humor was a significant part of their childhood from their parents and that 72% found humor to be an effective parenting tool. Out of those surveyed, the vast majority who reported having a strong bond with their parents as kids and now as adults also had humor as a part of their upbringing.

So how does that work? You’d probably want a fun relationship with your child but at the same time not appear to be a joke to them either. If your young kid has to approach you with a problem, you don’t want them to be afraid that you won’t take them seriously. You also don’t want them to continue bad behavior because they think it’s funny and ignore you when you tell them to stop.
Well, humor on its own won’t help parents, but using it correctively and implementing it constructively, such as when tensions are high, can benefit both you and your kid.
“While parent-child relationships are more loving than business relationships, stressful situations happen a lot when parenting,” said Lucy Emery, one of the authors of the study. “Humor can help diffuse that tension and hierarchy and help both parties feel better about a stressful situation.”

So in terms of applying humor into your parenting style, it’s an effective to use it to diffuse tense situations (like when a child’s having a tantrum or when they feel bad after being corrected or disciplined), model creative problem solving to your children, and just plain experience shared joy between you and your kid.
Many professionals in pediatrics and educators also say that humor not only promotes stronger bonds between parents and their children, but also helps child development. According to Children’s Minnesota Hospital among other experts, instilling a good sense of humor in a child helps them see situations in more perspectives such as when a certain situation could be funny or could be dangerous. Humor also allows them to laugh at themselves when they make mistakes as opposed to being angry or disappointed that they messed up. On top of that, frequent laughter is just healthier as it reduces stress, lowers blood pressure, and improves digestion on top of just making life in general more fun.

So if you’re a new parent and feeling stressed, take a moment. Instead of being upset that your son spilled their milk on the floor for the fifth time today, laugh at how ridiculous that is and tell a funny story about how clumsy you used to be as you both clean it up. If you and your kid had a tense fight, tell them a joke to let them know everything is okay between you two. And overall, just laugh with your kid. It’s good for them and it’s good for you, too.

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Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.