How To Laugh With Your Family To Relieve Stress

Laughing with your family can be a fun and effective way to reduce stress and improve your mood. Learn how here.

Laugh with your family to relieve stress because it’s fun, it brings your family closer together and because laughter is healing for your body!

We love to laugh together in our family until our sides hurt! Some of our after school & holiday routines involve our favorite funny movies just so we can laugh together.

How can you add laughter to reduce family stress? In this article, you will learn some easy ways to chuckle at home and start a chain reaction of belly laughs which can take a HUGE WEIGHT OFF your family in an already tense world.

Check out these article about how important Laughter is for our health!

Forbes: 6 Science Based Reasons Why Laughter Is The Best Medicine

Health Guide: Laughter Is The Best Medicine

Many families are VERY GOOD AT BEING SERIOUS. But, in order to reduce family stress, consider balancing out the serious worry with some light laughs.

To add laughter daily in your family, start small with a little joke or action you know your family finds funny. Sometimes a silly dance will help your family shift their serious energy, or a fart joke, haha.

We can teach our kids how to choose happiness and relieve stress, which may be the best gift we can ever give them.

DISCLAIMER: These are my opinions and should not be used as replacement for professional advice.

6 Tips To Laugh With Your Family

Laughing with your family is a habit that you can add to your daily life! Just like any healthy habit, once you have accomplished it for a time, then you start to crave it. Exercise hurts at first which makes this daily habit challenging, BUT LAUGHTER IS AWESOME!

Laughter has NO WARM UP period. The only brakes for laughter is choosing an appropriate time to laugh and giggle.

Seeing the humor in life, the absurdity, and taking advantage of the silly moments creates a happy environment.

Playing games together can be so fun and create lots of laughter! Start young and try anything you can think of. Be creative.

Laughter has been such a savior in our family in so many instances. In our days of awkward middle school hair & teeth, or changing schools in 7th grade for my son, laughter was a huge help. When we are learning the embarrassing lessons of growing up, laughter is powerful for stress relief!

Here are some fun stuff you can try with your family. These activities to laugh with your family don’t need to be expensive. A box top can make a toddler crack up, for example! And tweens love tickle monster!

Tip #1: Start With Gratitude

First of all, be thankful for even the smallest of things in your family. And teach your kids this as well. For example, a cute smile on a sibling, or a parent who can cook well. Take an inventory of the good things and keep that handy to refer to when you need inspiration.

Build on the small moments of good, and keep adding day by day.
NOTICE THE GOOD THINGS even when your day or year isn’t golden.

So, before you plan a time to laugh with your family, say something like this:
“Before we play a game, I want to notice how loving our family pet is, and give thanks for him.”
“I’m about to chase you, but I want to give thanks or all the plants that are still alive after mommy gave them too much water.”
“We’re about to slam each other with a balloon, and before, I want to give thanks for the dirty dishes you guys left for me. I can’t wait to try a “washing dishes meditation tonight.” (This always gets our teens to laugh, btw)

Start with gratitude and miracles happen.

Tip #2: Group Hugs To Laugh With Your Family

Best for ALL AGES, infant+

When ever you have a chance, pull your family in for a group hug. Start with the infants and pull together as a unit. Try to put your arms over each others shoulders and face each other like you have a secret plan to share.

Not only do these create laughter and stress relief for your family, but they are a great tradition to start early to teach togetherness.

Include you pets if they are close.

Then, make a “football play”, or a plan for something. For example, make a “play” for dinner, or cleaning, or homework. While hugging each other into a circle, give each team player a job to do.

“Ok, YOU go water the plants! YOU, go feed the dog! YOU, get the mail and YOU, take out the trash. Ready, break!”

Then, go try your plan.

This is a perfect time & place to practice “positive talk” towards each other. In this close hug, NO SCOLDING IS ALLOWED, only happy attitudes. Focus on the good of each person.

Group Hugs Are Important In The Tween & Teen Years

Practice group hugs when your kids are younger. Getting some touching in with your teens is tough sometimes. However, group hugs can break the ice and get them over a current drama by touching and being touched.

“The plan” will not be cool enough in “the Age of Cool” time period, but the physical contact and playful laughter is still very fun and important. These circles of hugs can often lead to one on one hugs with your teens, which can be EXTREMELY stress relieving for the entire family.

When two family members are fighting or haven’t spoken in a while, the other family members are also affected. Group hugs are a positive possibility to get through this time.

Your kids might encourage a family group hug when the parents are arguing, and I strongly suggest that you take their advice!

Allow a family group hug to work when the adults are arguing, and years later, your teen might take your lead and allow it to work for them.

Instead of a plan, in the teen years you can say things like, “you, great job on your test yesterday, and you, I love your outfit today! You, thanks for the high five this morning, and you, I appreciate your smile today!”

Tip #3: Play Tickle Monster

Best for ages 2.5-“The Age of Cool”
I’m not sure what “Tickle Monster” means in your house, but in our house, just saying the words creates a laugh with our family!

When the kids are under “the age of cool”, the laughter would also include happy screaming, JUST FOR SAYING “TICKLE MONSTER”.

Before you play:

Create a fluffy BASE on which to run and dive-to-safety from the “Tickle Monster”
Be careful of slick floors, or sharp corners
Make the path to the BASE a straight line for younger kids
Consider an outside path for teens
Add water in the summer when appropriate
Tickle Monster can have a “CLAW” hand or a certain voice
Always let the kids win
Don’t tickle for long, and let them get away

In our house, our dog, a golden doodle named Fred, is a “Tickle Monster Helper.” (Be sure to train your dog not to nip heels before!) Fred learned the game, and was able to take over for the “Daddy Tickle Monster”. And Thank our good LORD for that, because Daddy was sucking wind!! Haha.

Tickle Monster is by far one of our favorite family games and creates the HIGHEST LAUGHTER RATE!

Tip #4: Play Dodge Ball With Balloons!

Best for ages Tween +
Dodge ball is a great way to laugh with your family to relieve stress! Especially when you have some hot tempersand best when the balls are flimsy. This is a FUN FORM OF DODGEBALL, because it’s very difficult to throw the balloon! It creates stress relief from the absurdity!

Balls To Play Family Dodge Ball:

Balloons are best (the smaller the better)
Small rolled up towels
Toilet paper rolls
Wet sponges (outside in the summer)
Pillows
Whiffle balls (bigger kids, and outside, further away from each other)

You can play inside if you have protected all things breakable and covered sharp corners. Also, inside Dodge Ball is best with the softer balls, balloons and pillows.

Tip #5: Family Spa Day For Stress Relief!

Best for ages: 2+

Daddy getting his make up done by his daughter is always a family stress relief, haha. Take pictures and also suggest getting your hair done. lol.

Spa days create lots of laughter! Stress melts away with your glorious family spa day, haha.

And, everyone can be involved, even the pets.

What Your Spa Day Could Include:

Brushing hair
Doing make-up
Foot Bath
Painting nails
Hair braiding
Foot massage
Neck massage
Tea Time with crumpets
Cookies with milk

Make this as silly as possible for the most laughter with your family possible! Maybe have a funny Disney movie playing and some silly music!

Tip #6: Play Hide & Go Seek With Your Dog

Best for ages 1+ (as soon as they can walk alone)

Hide & Seek is great for adding laughter to your family, and it’s helpful for self control! Plus, all ages can participate and you can include your pets.

The teen version of Hide & Seek in our neighborhood is “Capture The Flag”, or “Nerf Gun Wars”, both of which deserves their very own articles.

Make The Hide & Seek Rules Match The Age Group:

Help counting
Easy to Hard hiding places
Extra rules for tweens+ (have a jail, you can tag them out of jail, etc)
Add dogs or not
Be careful of slippery floors and sharp corners

This family game can bring lots of family laughter and fun screaming in the younger ages! A great stress reliever! And, it’s still fun with tweens and teens!

Our dog plays Hide & Seek with the kids, and they just scream with joy! We have a Golden Doodle.

At first, let the dog observe and play along. The dog will bounce back and forth from the hiders to the seekers, and give the hiding places away, haha.

Eventually, the dog will learn what the rules are. Then, command the dog to “stay”, (you need a parent close by to give the dog command of “go”) and the kids run for a hiding place.

This is so fun! It doesn’t take many rounds before all parties are ready for a nap!

The kids will get better at hiding as the dog gets better at finding them.

The hours of family laughter this created in our house was priceless!

Conclusion: How To Laugh With Your Family To Relieve Stress

Laughter is the best medicine, and you can use it today to help your family relieve stress.

Be thankful first, then choose a game or two to laugh with your family. You could play tickle monster or dodge ball, or simply have a family bear hug.

We teach our children how to choose happiness, and when we play together, laughter is seamless and flows easily.

How do you like to create laughter in your family life???? We’d love to know!!

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