A good sense of humor is one of the most imporant things you will carry with you in life. Life is simply too difficult and serious for you to not have one. Some people think that the best way to deal with things is to just be serious and never laugh. Research shows that this is not the case. Laughter actually is good for your heart-it can increase the blood flow by more than twenty percent! Laughter allows us to take a break from the daily grind. It helps us to escape our situation and look at it from a different perspective. Without laughter we would surely be in a terrible position in life. Because we know that laughter is the best medicine, most parents want their children to develop a good sense of humor. Like their parents, children will need to know when to laugh at life and its absurdities. But how can you, as a concerned and good parent, encourage a good sense of humor in your child? It isn’t like watering a plant to watch it grow. A child is a person with a unique personality, and we should not try to change this. However, all children probably have some sense of humor and they can develop it more. While this might be easy in an elementary school child or teenager, how can you possibly encourage a good sense of humor in your infant or toddler?In this respect you will be somewhat limited, although there are things you can do. Infants are only so aware of the world and what is going on in it. This means that any kind of complicated sense of humor is simply denied to them. However, because they have so little understanding, the things that happen to them are very important and influence their later development. A baby often smiles at certain people who make funny faces or when they are tickled. Encourage this sort of behavior in your child. Find the things that make them smile and repeat them. As the baby gets older it might start to recognize what is absurd or funny. In this case find absurd things that will make the child laugh.Toddlers are the physical comedians of the world. They love to be tickled or thrown in the air. Some kids are more verbal and might like certain rhymes or silly words. They might find cartoons funny at this stage. Another thing that a toddler will start to do is be funny. When you recognize this in your child you know that they have a strong sense of humor. This usually manifests itself in behaviors that would seem absurd; when a child, for example, recognizes a rule or pattern but chooses not to follow it in order to get a response. Sometimes the beginning of a sense of humor is simply found in trying to get others to laugh.One of the most important things you can do to encourage your young child’s sense of humor is to laugh a great deal yourself. A child will observe this and learn that it is a good response to the world. A child who observes a great deal of seriousness and difficulty will probably think that the world is a scary place. When you laugh out loud you show your child that the world is okay and that its problems are not so bad. Kids will imitate their parents and follow in their footsteps. So remember to laugh in front of your kids and you will help them to develop great senses of humor.