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“Each of you should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” — 1 Peter 4:10
I bet, if you think back to your childhood, you can remember your elementary or high school class clown. It’s the person who made everyone laugh; the one with whom everyone wanted to be friends.
Our family has a clown, my son. He enjoys makings others laugh at home and especially at school, and God has gifted him with a great funny bone.
Yet being the funny one all the time can be a slippery slope. It’s easy to replace wit with sarcasm and good clean jokes with comments about bodily functions.
Good humor must be balanced with prudence and restraint.
That takes practice, especially for my nine-year-old boy. I am doing a few things to help him keep his humor clean as he develops the gift God has given him.
- Reinforce positive humor. Family gatherings are a great place to showcase a child’s humor. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles are a captive audience. I encourage my son to share his funny stories and jokes with his relatives. Then I point out how his gift promotes connection with them and among others.
- Teach him what the Bible says about laughter. God created laughter; in fact, humor and joy are mentioned many times throughout Scripture.
- Expose him to good clean humor. There are plenty of comedies, both movies and TV, to watch. I do my best to choose media that is positive and appropriate for my son’s age. And there are clean adult Christian comedians too, like Tim Hawkins.
Just like every class or family has a clown, every book collection should have a good joke book!
Consider adding The Super, Epic, Mega Joke Book for Kids by Whee Win to your collection. It is just the thing for comedians and joke-lovers, young and old. It’s filled with a kid-friendly collection of jokes, riddles, and tongue twisters.
It’s not just my son that loves joke books; my whole family does too. They come in handy for:
- Gifts – Include them in a care package for a sick friend.
- Long car rides – Read them to pass the time and chase away the “Are we there yet?”
- Family gatherings –If you have family members that range in age and interests you may not have much to talk about. Everybody loves to laugh, so a collection of jokes just might keep the conversation going.
- Party entertainment – Use the jokes as an icebreaker or create a comedy act even if you’re not a natural comedian.
As parents and caregivers, it is our job to teach our children how to steward their gifts well. Even when kids are young, we can ask them if they are you using what they’ve been given for the benefit of others, to make the world a better place? Or are they just using those talents to benefit themselves?
Stewarding your child’s gifts and talents includes embracing what they love and coming alongside them to help them express it positively. And that’s no joke!
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