Despite the Eye Rolls, Dad Jokes Are Really Good for Your Children

Published: June 17, 2026

family — Photo by Lawrence Crayton on Unsplash

By Michaela Gordoni

Researchers recently took a look at dad jokes to understand how they impact families.

It turns out the cringy puns can offer subtle mental health benefits and ease stress, Newser reports. Sometimes jokes can help listeners reframe how they see a problem. Most of all, dad jokes create bonds. They signal warmth and playfulness, even if they don’t get a laugh.

Researchers found that the most successful jokes were ones that mentioned family members and those that were in question-and-answer format.

In 2023, British researchers found that dad jokes show children their father’s willingness to embarrass himself repeatedly. They found the jokes also subconsciously teach children to be more comfortable with awkwardness and how to respond to it, researcher and psychologist Marc Hye-Knudsen said.

“When considered properly, dad jokes are an intricately multi-layered and fascinating phenomenon that reveals a lot not just about how humor and joke-telling work but also about fathers’ psychology and their relationships with their children,” he continued.

Children who are frequently exposed to dad joke-type humor grow up to have a healthy dose of immunity to embarrassment and judgment and feel free to be themselves, ABC 7 reported.

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“Helping children learn how to deal with embarrassment is no laughing matter. Getting better at this is a very important part of learning how to regulate emotions and develop resilience,” psychologists Shane Rogers and Hye-Knudsen said.

Hye-Knudsen calls dad jokes a “pedagogical tool” that pushes children’s limits for how much embarrassment they can handle.

“They show their children that embarrassment isn’t fatal. For a child who is approaching or has entered adolescence, which appears to be a sensitive period for sociocultural processing, this is an immensely valuable lesson,” he explained. “In this sense, dad jokes may have a positive pedagogical effect, toughening up the kids who are begrudgingly exposed to them.”

Dr. Nava Silton, a developmental psychologist in New York City, agrees. She told FOX 5, “Any time parents can role-play at home or offer tools for socialization to kids, put them in situations where they can practice their social tools, I think they can be incredibly beneficial for children.”

Stand-up comedian Aaron Littleton gets it.

“A good dad joke has to be so astonishingly stupid it leaves your child wondering if you are, in fact, a bit simple,” he said. “In a way, it reminds them they need to take the initiative to grow up because the fact that such an idiot has kept them alive so far must be nothing short of a miracle,” he jokes.

So, if you’re a dad who’s on a roll, keep the cringe coming. Your awful jokes are actually good for your kids — which you may have already known deep down.

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