One day earlier this month, my 13-year-old son and I were taking about anxiety.
I told him that self-deprecation - essentially making fun of yourself - is the best anxiety medicine I've ever discovered. If you're comfortable laughing at yourself, I said, it melts the stress that causes your muscles to tense up and your mind to dread.
Ironically, self-deprecation only works if you start with a foundation of self-confidence - which, I realize, is a lot easier at age 57 than at 13.
My family members, for example, have been conditioned to know that they can make fun of "Daddy" without any negative consequences. It's not that I have particularly thick skin - I don't. I just roll with it.
Mark KennedyMy two sons have recently begun ganging up on me for my Mr. Magoo driving habits, which include general pokiness and the tendency to lose concentration and overshoot my turns.
"Mommy drives better with her knees than Daddy does with his hands," my 13-year-old son announced at a family gathering last weekend.
"Well, that might be true," I said, smiling, "but let's see a show of hands if you've never had a speeding ticket."
I enthusiastically thrust my right arm in the air.
"Well, I've only had two," my wife said.
"Three," I corrected. "And that doesn't include tickets from traffic cameras."
"Whatever," she said, spearing a piece of fried okra with her fork.
"Let's talk about Mommy driving with her knees," I said, raising an eyebrow. "I'd like to know more about that little trick."
With that, the conversation veered in a new direction.
The next night, I was awakened by a loud laugh in the next room. Putting two and two together, I guessed correctly what was going on.
My wife had just returned from having a late dinner with a girlfriend and the laugh was her reaction to seeing a gauze bandage I had awkwardly taped around my son's leg. I was aware that it looked like he had been given first aid by a blind monkey. The gauze was just sort of flapping in the breeze and the tape meandered here and there. It was only meant to be temporary dressing until Mommy arrived home to apply a more permanent fix.
I rolled over, warmed by the thought that my wife and son had just had a good laugh at my expense. ("That Daddy, gotta love him.")
In addition to self-deprecation, I've found another secret to family life - being at least as nice to your spouse and children as you are to strangers. That may sound silly, but I have often caught myself substituting "justness" for "niceness" at home. With strangers, our first impulse is to be nice; with family it is to be fair.
A case in point, the other night my 8-year-old son came up to me at about 8 p.m. while I was reading and asked me sweetly, "Daddy would you go outside with me for about two minutes while I ride my bike around the neighborhood one last time?"
"Not tonight, son," I said. "We just got back from a walk, and it's almost bedtime."
His shoulders dropped and he sulked away.
In about 30 seconds I called him back and he had tears running down his face. For my own comfort - and in the name of fairness - I had denied my son one last morsel of fun at the end of a three-day holiday weekend.
"C'mon, buddy, let's go," I said. "But just once around the neighborhood."
He brightened immediately and ran out to get his bike helmet.
Saying "no" in this instance had been fair, but it certainly wasn't nice.
Some people are born humble and nice, I guess. While others of us need a lifetime of trial and error to embrace the obvious: Good people lead happier lives.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645. Follow him on Twitter @TFPCOLUMNIST. Subscribe to his Facebook updates at www.facebook.com/mkennedycolumnist.