How Improvs Golden Rule Can Help You Better Connect With Your Kids

Always say yes. On its surface, the first rule of improv seems like it would be the last rule of raising young children. Candy for breakfast ? Mmmm, no. Play tug-of-war with Moms silk scarf? Maybe not today. Obviously yes has its limitations. But a few veteran improvisational comedians who happen to be fathers argue that the comedic arts most important principle can be one of fatherhoods as well.

Of course, as far as improv is concerned, yes is only half of it the other is and.

Kids give us such a great lesson of being present, actor, director, and improviser extraordinaire Ben Falcone told us about the yes and rules. Theres also something so great about how present they are and just how they want to be here right now. Thats what improv is all about. They call it being in the moment and when youre doing it right onstage or in life I think its the best thing you can do.

The yes, and rule is simple. The thinking is this: in improv, anyone involved in the scene should accept what another participant has said and then expand on that line of thinking/world building.

You want to get your scene partners to agree to a base reality, explains Doug Moe , a performer and teacher at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and the author of Man vs. Child: One Dads Guide to the Weirdness of Parenting . So if your partner says Were in a bakery, you typically say, Okay! Were in a bakery, and you build a scene. That doesnt mean your character should necessarily be 100 percent aligned with your partners character, he adds, but he does encourage his students to be agreeable in a more holistic sense. If theres no reason to disagree, its better to agree, he says. I guess, in improv, if you said yes to everything, some things might get a little crazy. But if theres not a reason to say no, you might as well say yes.

How does this translate to parenting? Simple: it makes you an agreeable and active participant, especially when it involves imaginative activities proposed by creative toddlers.

When I was home playing with my daughter and shed want to play a game of some sort that I didnt really want to do play dress-up, or just take apart Candyland and make up new rules for it, or this weird art project that didnt seem like it would work you can kind of see the finish line, says Moe. When Moe realized he didnt have a good reason to say no, he didnt. You might as well just try it. A lot of times, just the trying is the fun part the point is letting kids try things and dictate the terms. They get no control over so many things.

Ryan Gaul , a veteran performer with The Groundlings and actor who has appeared in such series as Bajillion Dollar Propertie$, Superstore, and House of Lies seconds Moes notion. And he adds that the yes, and approach has helped him form deeper bonds with his two sons, seven and four. My 7-year-old at one point asked me if I would marry him, and my first thought was to explain to him, well, there are several roadblocks here, he recalls. But instead I just went with it and I was like, Yes! We can get married, we can totally get married, well figure it out.

In improv, an important complement to agreement is listening to your scene partner or, rather, to what their character wants and responding to it. Gaul realized his sons proposal was more than just a flight of fancy. The reality is, [my son] was just trying to figure out how to express his love for me, he says. If I had shut that down by just being, like, No, heres the rules of the world, I think that would have sent a very specific message to him instead of just saying Yeah! Any idea you have, we can try to take the meaning behind what youre actually saying and build on that.

Look at any great improv team, from UCB to the on-screen group put together by Mike Birbiglia in the recent Dont Think Twice . Theyre connected. They react to one another. They try their best to accept wacky premises. The group mind that develops in a seasoned improv team can blossom in a family as well. Gaul says that when a pet cat passed away several years ago, his 7-year-old, then four, declared that the cat now lived behind the moon. The word Yes came to the rescue yet again. We just kinda said Yep! Thats a fun idea, Gaul says. And to this day, both our kids [say] when people die, they go to live behind the moon. Weve created this, like, inner family philosophy that our heaven exists behind the moon. And whos to say it doesnt? Certainly not anyone following the rules of improv.

Perhaps more than anything else, the yes, and mentality helps parents celebrate their kids imaginations and tap into their own. Improv is full of imagination, Moe says. The ability to be a goof and try to let your guard down and actually play is one of the most important things a father can do.

Gaul agrees. The beauty of children is their imaginations are just endless, and thats something that, as we get older, we kind of lose. I think something so attractive about improv, and why we see so many people in their late 20s and 30s and older taking improv classes, is because its an excuse to go back to that child mind we all have inside us.

The thing I enjoy most about being an improviser as a father is watching that, he adds.