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How dad jokes help?
When does a joke become a dad joke? When it becomes apparent. Try not to groan at the corny dad jokes — they might actually be good for kids.
One expert wrote in the British Psychological Society’s journal that dad jokes are important to help children learn to be embarrassed and toughen them up to accept that embarrassment isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Marc HyeKnudsen, a researcher of humor and lab manager at Aarhus University’s Cognition and Behavior Laboratory in Denmark, explained how teasing and rough-and-tumble play can support a child’s physical and cognitive development.
“By teasingly striking at their children’s egos and emotions without teetering over into bullying, fathers build their children’s resilience and train them to withstand minor attacks and bouts of negative emotion without getting worked up or acting out, teaching them impulse control and emotional regulation,” Hye-Knudsen wrote.
He continued, “In light of this, it is worth considering dad jokes as a pedagogical tool that may serve a beneficial function for the very children who roll their eyes at them.
“By continually telling their children jokes that are so bad that they’re embarrassing, fathers may push their children’s limits for how much embarrassment they can handle. They show their children that embarrassment isn’t fatal,” he wrote.
He said dad jokes have three levels: puns, anti-humor and weaponized anti-humor when used to tease, annoy or embarrass children.
The term “dad joke” made it into the Merriam-Webster dictionary in 2019 with the definition, “a wholesome joke of the type said to be told by fathers with a punchline that is often an obvious or predictable pun or play on words and usually judged to be endearingly corny or unfunny.”
Dad jokes often are responded to with a groan, but sometimes they’re so unfunny that they’re actually humorous, eliciting a little laugh.
Hye-Knudsen encouraged dads to continue with their unfunny jokes — no matter how badly their children want them to stop.
“Don’t let their groans, their eye rolls, or their palpable irritation stop you. You’re partaking in a long and proud tradition, and your embarrassingly awful jokes may even do them some good,” he said. “Keep repeating the same old stale puns, year-in and year-out. Through painful repetition, you get to experience the same old joke go through waves of being unfunny and then so unfunny that it becomes funny. One day, you may overhear your children spontaneously telling the same joke, perhaps when they themselves have become parents.”
Some dad jokes to get your child’s eyes rolling: What’s a pirate’s favorite letter?
R?
You would think so, but his first love is the C. Knock knock
Who’s there? Interrupting cow. Interrupting co . . . Mooo!
What do you call a fish wearing a bowtie? Sofishticated.
What did the ocean say to the beach? Nothing, it just waved.
What’s the best thing about Switzerland?
I don’t know, but the flag is a big plus.