We Won't Ever Regret Being Kind

Happy end of February; first, a story.

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Supporting Students' Mental Health

Today, a throwback to a few years ago, to this

picture my brother Mark took, because it made me laugh.

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Laughing Matters

Today I'm thinking about laughter, perhaps because I found this treasure. 
Travel with me back to 1955 and meet my mom.

See her senior year page from of the high school yearbook.

Turns out, she loved to laugh.

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A Laughing Matter

Today I'm excited to welcome Jeff Tierney to the Corner for his guest post on laughter.

Thank you, Jeff, for sharing your experience, wisdom and insight with us. 

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A laughing matter: Why humor is important to children's development

  

Imagine, for a moment, being a parent who’s having a few guests over; maybe your in-laws, a neighbor, or even your pastor. So far, everyone is having a great time and even the kids haven’t done anything too wacky. Then all of a sudden, without warning your ten year old utters those seven infamous words “I heard a joke at school today.” And despite your best efforts to make sure it’s an appropriate one, there’s no un-ringing that bell and the joke proceeds to be told.

Humor is an important issue at Boys Town. You might say we take the ability to laugh very seriously. Many of the children and families served by Boys Town programs across the country have experienced lives full of sadness, loss, tragedy, and disappointment. Often they have been robbed of many things that are essential for a normal, happy family life…including the ability to laugh. And it’s easy to see why. For many of our children, life has been anything but a laughing matter.

But cultivating a good sense of humor and ability to laugh are critical to our kids’ happiness and eventual success as adults. Researchers have linked having a good sense of humor with lower stress levels, better interpersonal relationships, longer life-span, and greater career advancement.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many good role-models for having an appropriate sense of humor out there for our kids. This is especially true of television where much of the “humor” is fairly mean-spirited. Consider TV shows such as Punked, Wipeout, Scare Tactics, and Fear Factor. Comedy at other people’s expense and discomfort is not the best way to teach children what’s really funny.

A good place to start is knowing the difference between being funny and having a sense of humor. Being funny means being able to express humor of one kind or another by being witty, telling a well timed joke, making a pun, getting other people to laugh, etc. And most comics say you do need to have a sense of humor to be funny. Trying to be funny without a sense of humor can easily come across as sarcastic, belittling, and defensive toward others. Ridiculing other people, either in person or online, is a good example of this.

In contrast, having a sense of humor means being able to laugh at, or at least see the humor in, life’s absurdities (even when they happen to you). But you don’t have to be funny in order to have a good sense of humor. A great skill that everyone (including our kids) needs to learn is how to not take oneself quite so seriously, be able laugh at our own mistakes, and know the line between good natured ribbing and malicious teasing. We actually have two skills in our Teaching Social Skills to Youth book, available from the Boys Town Press, that directly address the issues of teaching kids to use appropriate humor and be able to laugh at themselves. These skills are, and you probably guessed this, “Using Appropriate Humor” and “Laughing at Oneself.”

There are specific steps to both of these skills that make them much easier to teach to a child.  For example, the steps to “Using Appropriate Humor” include:

1) Look at the circumstances to see it’s an appropriate time for a joke,

2) avoid humor that makes fun of groups in our society or another person,

 3) avoid sexually-oriented jokes and profanity, and

4) if your humor offends someone, promptly and sincerely apologize.

By breaking skills down into specific steps, kids have a much easier time discussing them with you and practicing them. You can even point out when watching TV when one of the characters of a show didn’t use those steps and hurt someone else’s feelings.

There are lots of ways parents and even teachers can help their kids learn how to laugh, have fun, and even deliver a good one-liner. Good luck and keep smiling!

Jeff Tierney, M.Ed. has worked with children and families for over 35 years.  He has just recently retired from Boys Town in Nebraska after 28 years working in the staff training and evaluation areas and, most recently, as Director of the Boys Town Press. Jeff is the author of Teaching Social Skills to Youth, Basic Social Skills for Youth, and articles in professional journals on reducing aggressive and antisocial behavior in children and teens.

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Keep It Golden

Our favorite ventriloquist, Dennis Lee, traveled to Friendswood to help us kick off Red Ribbon Week, and look who he brought with him to remind us that as we travel through life and as we write and tell our story that we should always be mindful to keep it golden.

Wolf E. and Sweetie Pie

 and Nicholas, oh my!

They talked with us about moving from me to we ...

and reminded us that everybody has somebody who loves them.

We loved how he spelled the word LOVE out of his props so much that we drew it in our some of our reflections.

Spending the day with ventriloquist Dennis Lee is a special treat that we've looked forwarded to with delight and anticipation every year for the past fifteen. Grab a cup of coffee or tea and your camera and join us in Wolf E. Lodge, where you'll enjoy a few memories from this year's show.

Thank you, Dennis Lee, for the booster shot of laughter and love.

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Serving Up Some Magic

When people connect, magical things happen.

First ... some good news! 

This station up in WI featured my brother and nephew as a father-son duo playing in a VB tourney together. So refreshing to see a positive news clip. 

P is for perseverance. Congratulations, Paul, for being inducted into this tournament's Hall of Fame for a quarter century of participation and leadership. How many people do you know who've stuck with something recreational long enough so that their teenaged son could join them in the magic?

Here's a post-induction magical moment
that suits me to a T ... wish I'd been there!

Nice shot, Mark!

And the VB court isn't the only place you can serve up some magic. How would you serve in an airport? Let someone in a hurry go in front of you? Hold a door opened for someone? Give up your seat when it's crowded? Click the graphic to see the creative idea Sheila and her boys have for passing them time on travel.

Have you tried to the catch-the-virtual-virtues-in-a-bag trick with your little magicians yet?  Click {here} to watch a demo and see how you might integrate it this year. The lunch sack is such a powerful visual because virtues feed and grow our heart like food feeds and grows our body, right?

Need some back-to-school ideas to magically connect your kids? Laura at Corkboard Connections has a Caring Class resource round-up {here}.  

Oh, and there are now over 50 pins posted on my new 

Pinterest Board featuring Character Education Object Lessons. If you've got an object lesson to share, please leave your link in the comments.

Oh, and yesterday when I needed a laugh, I came up with the idea to put this notice atop the pile of Jacob's folded laundry 

{because who does he think magically does this for him?}. 

Can you believe that he told me I have entirely too much time on my hands? Yep, time ... and laundry!

Laughter = pure magic.

Tomorrow we'll head to Wisconsin to visit Lisa and to Arizona to check in on Misty and see what these two magically-creative character educators have to say about Chapter 3 and 'stick-to-it-tiveness' in our superheroes.

I can't wait.

Wait, what? This is the first you've heard about the book study?

No worries. Click {here} to go to Curls and a Smile for a list of posts and links about the book that'll take you all the way back to the end of May at its release.

What's happening that's magical in your world today?

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Laughing Aloud

Just for fun, we've been telling jokes 

during our morning announcements at school.

Last week Mr. Whitlock had a pretty good one:

What happened when the snowman got mad?

It had a melt down.

He's hilarious and he makes me laugh. Every day.

When's the last time you've had a good belly laugh?

Last week I read this article from the writings of the Dalai Lama called

Why I Laugh. And it's good. Really good.

It made me think ... and then want to smile ... 

and then laugh ... out loud!

Sometimes I laugh too loudly, and I get in trouble.

But it feels good, really good, to laugh like that.

It can relieve stress too, ya know, to laugh.

I mean really laugh. Genuinely.

Especially when it's with someone ... 

and not at someone else's expense.

My sister and I laugh. A lot. 

In fact, sometimes we don't even say hello on the phone, 

we just start the conversation with a quick "remember when?"

and a hearty laugh. Really loud and sort of obnoxious.

Because it feels good. To reminisce. And to laugh.

With someone special. About something that connects us.

Sometimes it's about a mistake we made.

Or a goofy memory ... about cow tongue sandwiches ...

or lumpy oatmeal ...  or picking wild asparagus in the ditch.

We find that often our memories are a whole lot funnier

on this side of them.

Or maybe your laughter resulted from watching a funny movie ... 

or taking in a marathon of the Big Bang Theory, 

How I Met Your Mother, 

or {insert your favorite sitcom here} episodes.

Just for kicks.

Comics can be funny, too. 

Calvin and Hobbes used to crack me up. 

So did The Far Side. And Joe Martin's Mr. Boffo.

I found this one circa 1986 and it still tickles my funnybone.

In any event, when is the last time you've really laughed?

Unrestrained milk-through-your-nose, get-hiccups-afterward 

laughter?

Because laughter truly is a sparkler for the soul...

and I've heard it's pretty good medicine, too.

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