One of the many joys I take in being the parent of a ten year old boy is finding new ways to make him laugh or think a little differently about questions and things in the world. I’ve used these techniques over the years:

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Misconstrue his questions:

Son: What day is it?

טאַטע: One day before Wednesday.

ד: ניט, what day of the month is it?

ד: טאַקע, it’s 4 days after Jan 25.

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Tickle him and tell him you’ll stop when he stops laughing.

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Go down stairs to the TV room and announce, "It’s good to be the daddy." דעמאָלט, pick him up to get the warm spot on the couch and change the channel to something good, like the Scifi channel.

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Read stories out loud. Insert ridiculous sentences in the middle of the story. My favorite is to add "killing him instantly" when the main characters encounters some minor trouble. לעמאָשל, "the knife slipped in his hand, cutting his index finger, killing him instantly." Nothing quite gets your son out of a complacent and passive listening mode as the main character being killed instantly.

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Read stories incorrectly. Read sentences backward. The best part of this is that the first couple of times I did this, my son thought he was helping me out by pointing out that I wasn’t reading the words in the right order. The down side is that he really doesn’t want me to read to him any more.

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Go to Burger King for lunch. My son would eat BK morning, night and day if we let him. When going, tell him, "I know you hate going there, but we simply have no choice." When he tries to explain that he loves BK, talk over him and say things like "We don’t have time to argue about it! We’re going and I don’t want to have a discussion!"

(This reminds me of my favorite Borg joke: "Borger King: We do it our way. Your way is irrelevant." hahaha!)

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Open a book to page 9 and say, "hmm, that’s an odd page".

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Fill the world with arch enemies. "We’re going to run quick over toe 7-11, arch-enemy of 11-7".

"Your aunt lives in Ringwood, arch enemy to the town of Squarewood."

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We drive up to Massachusetts from New Jersey several times a year and it often takes about 5 hours door to door. As we arrive home and pull into the driveway say, "oh, I forgot, we need to make a quick dash to Home Depot."

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When watching a violent episode in a TV show (such as Heroes), tell your son, "some times, at work, I need to destroy my enemies by burning them alive using the powers of my mind. I don’t like doing it, but you gotta do what you gotta do."

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When watching bad horror movies (see "It’s good to be the Daddy" העכער), ascribe improbable motives to the evil character. לעמאָשל, tell your son that the reason Jason is so angry is because he wants some cake and they won’t let him have any.

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Explain phone numbers incorrectly. Instead of telling your son to dial "201-111-2222", tell him it’s "2-011-1-12222".

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What tricks do you use?

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