Gentle Teasing

Post Reply New Topic

I was taught by a group of decorators (who I used to work with) that teasing isn't always intended as hurtful interaction. Once I grasped this concept I enjoyed it and slowly learned how to tease without being hurtful.

I found this a useful skill when bringing up children . If you do it in a recognizably teasing voice they learn that not everything you say should be taken as truth. It is also an inoculation against the wider more harmful behavior they will encounter outside the home, because gentle teasing lets them learn and recognize the rules of confidence tricks and verbal bullying in later life and deal with them.

Does anyone else find gentle teasing a useful tool.

Not really.
I do not see the use of teasing.

It seems to be an excuse for bullying, trying to get out of punishment.

Gentle teasing makes up about 50% of what I say, does humorous sarcasm count?

PostPosted: Fri Mar 05, 2010 5:04 am Post subject:

Neither did I . But once I grasped it's importance in bringing up children I decided to try to employ it in a constructive way. I have two hybrid children. Both now adults, gently tease me. It is not the
same as being hurtful.

It is very similar to gentle humor. I used to tell them impossible, improbable stories in order they could get the rules of possibility and probability. It prepared them for when someone else with less benign intent attempted to do this for real.

Can you give examples?

example with my daughter:

Daughter: "What are you eating?"

Me: "It's a mixture of bees knees and magical moon pudding"

Daughter: (grabs spoon and tastes): "Hey! That's just some weird flavor of yogurt"

Lesson taught by this tease: verify what you've been told, it may not be accurate

Some gentle teasing is okay, but if someone is teasing me about something I did or one of my weird behaviours, even gently, I get all uptight and stressed about it as it just highlights how different I can be to others at times and I don't like that.

Yes:

Age 5:

I'm preparing a meal. There is a bag of frozen chips ( fries). I put on my teasing voice and set facial expression ta few degrees off genuine sincerity.

Me : " When I was your age frozen chips were much bigger than this." ( Wait for response)

"How, how big were they?!"

"Well, they were about this big." (I am holding my arms 90 cm apart to indicate size.) " They took a whole day to defrost and we had one chip each. Those were the small ones, the biggest were like canoes and we had to bring them back on the roof rack of the car. Do you think the idea of smaller chips is better? "

"Why did they make such big chips?"

"Because they never thought about making smaller chips."

"Who thought about making smaller chips?"

"A very clever man his, name was Albert Potatostein and he discovered the theory of Special Chipability, it means chip size is relative to the size of the mouth that is eating it."

"No he didn't !"

"Yes he did.........."

"We don't believe anyone is called Albert Potatostein"

The chips would not fit in the freezer, nor would they fit in the oven. Hence this is an untruth.
The more obvious you make the untruth the easier it is to grasp the rules. And Potatostein
makes it obvious it is a childrens story-type thing. Which is a kind of childs version of a grown up con trick, laid bare through its exaggeration.

Brennan- I like being teased . Why don't you tease me and try it? Make up anything and see if I buy it. It's a good game.

I've had to learn gentle teasing, myself. I'm a pro at it, now.

It is good isn't it Cockney.

tease return-

" The moon is made of cheese"

"No it's not , it's an omelette"

This is teasing?
These are just lies.

I do not like lies either but your children do not seem to mind.
I do not like when lying is taken lightly, it makes me much less trustful in people.

Glad it's not just me that doesn't see this as teasing. I was wondering whether I had totally misunderstood the whole concept of teasing. This to me is just telling silly stories to teach kids to think critically. A very good thing to do, but not what I would call teasing.

It is an inoculation against real teasing and its adult variants.

This isn't teasing, this is fibbing.