(Provided photo)

As many of you may have heard, MyNBC5’s Meteorologist Tyler Jankowski has been so interested in what I have had to share on my First with Kids segments that he has decided to give up reporting the weather and apply to medical school!

I, in turn, have begun to take courses in meteorology so we can switch places but keep our jobs on NBC5.

Ok… April Fool!

April Fool’s Day is a great opportunity to remind everyone about the importance of humor in your children’s lives.

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Benefits of humor

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Number one, humor is a wonderful way for a family to connect! It makes life fun for children and for parents. It teaches a child to be spontaneous, to not take themselves too seriously, and studies suggest that children with a good sense of humor are happier, have higher self-esteem, are more liked by peers, are less stressed and better able to handle the adversities of childhood and life in general.

In addition, people who laugh are healthier, less likely to be depressed, better endure pain, and may even have an increased resistance to illness.

Yet children are not born with a sense of humor, they need to develop one — and parents, you can help.

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Nurturing a sense of humor

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¯ If you have a new baby, you can see that they cannot understand humor yet. However, they do know when you are smiling and happy. When you make a funny face, your baby even in the first few months of life will sense your joy and even try to imitate you!

¯ Toddlers love “surprise” humor that can occur playing games like peek-a-boo.

¯ A preschooler loves a funny picture like a cow in sunglasses and may begin to enjoy noises from bodily functions especially if they bother you.

¯ School age children love humor in words told by jokes, riddles, and my personal favorite, puns.

¯ And of course, who can forget the sarcasm and cynical humor that somehow seems to always arrive during adolescence.

The bottom line is that parents — if you can be playful and humorous with your children, they will be too. It is also important to set boundaries on humor, such as how much bathroom humor is too much and to explain that some jokes may hurt feelings ,even unintentionally, so your children don’t use more of that type of humor in the future.

Hopefully, tips like these will be more than a laughing matter when it comes to helping your children find their sense of humor.

This is pediatrician Dr. Lewis First from the University of Vermont Children’s Hospital asking, “What did one eye say to the other eye? Between you and me something smells.” Now, that’s funny!

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Lewis First, MD, is Chief of Pediatrics at The University of Vermont Children’s Hospital and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine. You can also catch “First with Kids” weekly on WOKO 98.9FM and NBC5.