Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
We're here because your heightened awareness deserves heightened entertainment. The Last Show with David Cooper. For dads, bonding with their children is definitely about being there when they cry, when things are tough, but there's some real magic that happens when a dad and child laughs together.
Dad jokes might be doing some serious emotional heavy lifting and securing that relationship of father and child. I'm here with someone who's done research on this. He is a psychology professor at the University of Ottawa, and his name is Jean-Francois Bureau. Jean-Francois, welcome to the show. It's nice to chat with you. Thank you, David.
Let's talk about this profound question about parenting science. I feel like this is about crying babies, not laughing ones.
Chapter 2: What unique role does laughter play in father-child relationships?
I feel like psychologists have been getting this wrong, studying the wrong thing. What made you want to look at laughter?
Well, there's nothing wrong looking at how parents are able to comfort a crying baby, but that's not the end of the story, right? That's not the only thing you want to do as a parent, saying, oh, I'm waiting for my child to cry so I can comfort and show what a good parent I am.
It's also enjoying your time with the child and sending a very strong message that you enjoy just being with them, interacting with them and being playful, right? So that is tremendously important and it has been understudied.
So tell me about laughter. Tell me how it's a kind of social glue that connects a father and a child. What's going on when we laugh with our children?
Well, we know laughter is really important, right?
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Chapter 3: How do dad jokes contribute to emotional bonding?
It's important in human. Chimps laugh with their parents. Their parents are tickling them. Rats. Rats laugh. Really? Yeah. If you tickle a rat, it will have this micro sound. So they laugh. So it's part of all the mammal species that there's a connection. I am enjoying being with you. Of course, I'm talking about the kind of laugh where you enjoy being with someone, not being sarcastic, right?
Yeah. So there is a bonding, there is love, there's hormones that are being released when you laugh. So that is really important with kids and that's important in the relationship also. So the question is, do we laugh more with dad? Do we laugh more with mom? Is that more important with dad?
Chapter 4: What motivated the research on laughter in parenting?
Is that more important with mom? Is this a big component of the relationship? This is really what we want to look at.
And laughter with mom is different than laughter with dad. That seems so, I don't know, striking to me that laughter can mean something coming from a different parent.
Tell me more about that. There is a few myths here that it's important to address. So first of all, In general, moms spend way more time with children than dads, just in terms of number of hours. So the first thing that's really important, mothers spend more time per week playing with children than fathers.
So the idea that only dads, it's our specialty, and dads are playing and moms are boring, this is kind of a myth. Because moms spend more time playing, dads spend a bigger proportion of their time playing. So that's one thing. So in our research, we look at the different strategies parents are using. We were expecting mom to be more verbal, songs, things like that, with dad being more physical.
And we're kind of surprised to see that moms are using the exact same amount of tickling and chasing and rough and tumble kind of thing. And children were laughing as much with mom and dad. So there were no differences there. But it seemed to be more central in the relationship with father, which was interesting, too.
It sounds really interesting, that stereotype that dad's the fun parent and mom is the responsible one. I think it's important to blow that up a little bit. But in some ways, your study kind of reinforces it, too.
It brings an interesting nuance where it suggests that... Look, mom and dad are as capable of making a child laugh. So that's what we found. However, it is related to the quality of relationship and to trust the child as in the parent. Only in the father-child relationship. Oh, more in the... I should be careful here. But more in the father-child relationship.
And our idea here, explanation could be both ways. So either... Because there are slight differences in the way we play with children. And fathers are more intrusive. They're more challenging. They use like a frightening voice. They try to surprise the child. Or they're just being grossly inappropriate, making fart joke and things, right?
Well, I do want to get into the deep psychology of dad jokes at the end of the interview.
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Chapter 5: How does laughter serve as a social glue between parents and children?
So basically, they just enter the room. There's no toys because it's way too easy to use toys. So they come in the room and we say, OK, you have a few minutes to make your child laugh. And the parents are like, what? Yeah, you just heard me. I mean, just make him laugh.
You just said to these participants, make your child laugh, go.
Yeah, absolutely. And you should see like fathers like jumping on their kids and stuff like that. And rapidly, we realized that, you know, mom were pretty good at it. But there were slight differences. Like mothers will tell the child, oh, I'm going to tickle you. I'm warning you. 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?
But if you did, that's for another interview, I'm sure.
That is, yeah.
Anyway, okay. So what is a healthy relationship in this laughter? What does a father who can make their kid laugh in that way say about the relationship and how secure it is and how well they're bonded?
Yeah.
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Chapter 6: Do children laugh more with their dads or moms?
So imagine the message to a teenager who are so conscious about what would people think of me. You know what? No. I say the most stupid things and it works.
It sounds like there's actually some real psychology behind dad jokes. Very quickly, do you have a favorite one, Jean-Francois?
Oh, man, I know them in French. I'm so sorry. I'll have to end up with a French joke, I guess.
You can give me one in French or badly translated if you like.
Well, I'll have to think about it.
You'll have to come back another time. I'll give you one that I just jotted down. I used to be addicted to soap, but I'm clean now.
That is perfect.
Well, Jean-Francois Bureau is a psychology professor at the University of Ottawa. Jean-Francois, I've enjoyed the chat. Thanks for coming on the program. Thank you for inviting me.
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Chapter 7: What are the myths surrounding parental roles in play?
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