One of the best things you can do to develop your child's sense of humor is to use your own. Make jokes. Tell funny stories. Laugh out loud. Deal lightly with small catastrophes like spilt milk. Take kids' humor seriously. Encourage your child's attempts at humor, whether it's reading potentially unfunny jokes from a book or drawing "funny" pictures of the family dog.
Praise your child for trying to be funny and be open to surprise — the first time your child makes you laugh is one of life's great pleasures. Teach kids that adults are funny — and that they can be too. Make humor a part of your day-to-day interactions with your kids and encourage them to share funny observations or reactions, even when you're around other adults. Create a humor-rich environment. Surround your kids with funny books — for toddlers and preschoolers these include picture books or nonsense rhymes; older kids will love joke books and comics.
Also check out funny TV shows, movies, and websites for all age groups — help your child make good choices and then enjoy them too. You don't want to rain on their parade, but kids need boundaries when it comes to humor, just like they do in other areas. You don't want to encourage mean-spirited or off-color jokes, so be a good role model and avoid using humor in this way.
If someone tells a hurtful or inappropriate joke, don't laugh. Take the time to explain to your child why that joke isn't funny. You also might want to gently discourage bathroom humor or at least not participate too heartily. It won't hurt anyone's feelings but kids may have trouble determining when it's OK to make such a joke at home, with family and when it's not in the classroom, at church.
Above all, humor is social. That's why you laugh harder at a funny movie when you see it in the theater with other people laughing around you than all alone on your couch. A key aspect to developing your child's sense of humor is to take time to have fun as a family. Share jokes, play games, and watch funny movies together. You might even adopt your own offbeat family traditions, whether it's hanging spoons off your noses or wearing matching pajamas. It will be funny now — and maybe even funnier in years to come, when you and your kids remember those silly family times.
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Close Sign in. Close this dialog window View image When will my child be able to understand jokes? There may be many explanations why a child doesn't seem to respond to a joke, says Schlozman. Perhaps he is depressed; perhaps he just didn't think it was funny. But if a child consistently fails to see jokes or other forms of humour as funny, that should be a red flag to parents. It could be a sign of being on the autism spectrum.
Kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder also often fail to respond to jokes, Semrud-Clikeman says. As kids approach their teen years, it may also be important to pay attention to what kinds of humour they tend to favour.
In a study published last year, researchers at Keele University in Britain found that children who use what researchers called "self-defeating humour" — defined as disparaging themselves and making themselves the butt of their own jokes — were more likely to be bullied by peers. The study of more than 1, kids age 11 to 13 also found that some children were able to use humour to reduce anxiety and laugh at something that might be frightening.
This is why researchers say humour is not only an important developmental indicator, but also a key component of resiliency as children try to navigate the difficult period of adolescence. Most parents are happy to joke around with their children and encourage their sense of humour. But not all do. Those parents are doing their children a disservice, given all we know about the links between humour, mental health and social development, he says. Turns out kidding around is so much more than just joking.
Children start to understand humour earlier than you might expect. After that, their funny bones develop along a fairly predictable timeline. What's so funny?
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