Jean-François Bureau

Or is the dad is already jumping on the child like he was a pancake, right?

So there is element of surprise that it's more there with fathers and mothers will let the child know this is coming.

But ultimately...

they're able to make the child laugh.

So now if the child, if the father is more surprising, more out of nowhere, unpredictable, then the child needs more trust to accept that kind of stimulation, right?

So if mother is just playing, but it's softer, maybe it's not that related to the relationship or you don't need, you know, someone say, oh, I'm going to make a joke.

Okay, make your joke, right?

But if someone jumps on me to find it funny, I have to trust the person.

I mean, I will not accept a complete stranger jumping on me and start tickling me, right?

That is, yeah.

I think, you know, what we've seen in research is because mothers spend more time and they also have different roles with the child.

So there's maybe in most families a greater variety of ways to show your child that you love them and that you're there for them, you support them because there's comforting emotional responses, things like that with mothers.

With fathers, because they spend most of their time playing,

Well, maybe it's important for the child to feel that the father is actually enjoying playing with them and they're being playful.

And you know what?

I'm here because I want to be with you.

I want to have fun with you.

So what we found in our paper that you're mentioning is this is more related to child's trust and child's quality of relationship with the father if father is being playful like this.

You know, in my paper, that research, the kids are younger.

My three-year-old dad jokes, it's not that clear they can really catch it or not.