How to Develop Children’s Sense of Humor

Everybody loves a good joke. Individuals with a great sense of humor attract the attention of other people easily and develop strong communication skills. They are more spontaneous, know how to think outside the box, and generally have a lot of fun in life.

For these and many other reasons, you should try to develop your child’s sense of humor. Strange as it may seem, this process begins well before the baby is 12 months old. At that time, babies already start recognizing your laughter and try to imitate your behavior. There is obviously no time to waste, so you better begin teaching your little angel to have fun and make jokes. In this article, we will explain how to do it.

10 Ways to Build the Kids’ Humor

Anna Simons, an HR manager at Essayontime recently stated: “Humor is one of the basic social mechanisms. It plays a key role in the mental development of an infant but unfortunately, a lot of parents are not aware of this fact. Although many consider humor to be a frivolous topic, it’s actually an important skill that people exploit in everyday life.”

According to McGhee’s stages of humor development, children grow their wittiness in 4 phases. They do it as babies, continue as toddlers and preschool children, and finish as school kids. In each of these stages, parents can give a significant contribution and we will show you the 10 most practical ways.

• Make silly sounds

Babies and toddlers will immediately recognize when you make unusual faces and silly sounds. You can imitate the sound of a car or simply squeak. It will leave your kid amused and giggling.

• Sing

As soon as the kids start recognizing and repeating the first words, they are also able to figure out the rhymes. You can inspire their humor and creativity by making funny rhymes without a particular meaning at all. Such word games will make them laugh but also eager to learn to do it on their own.

• Hide and seek

Hide and seek is one of the oldest children games but you can play it with a small addition: pretend that you don’t see you child hiding. And if you deliberately act confused, it will look hilarious to your toddler.

• Misplace things

Another thing that you can do is to reposition things in your home. For instance, you can put a Teddy Bear in the washing machine to cause curiosity. Your kid will get the joke and figure out that there is something funny about misplacing things on purpose.

• Wear strange clothes

Not too many things can spark a sense of humor in your child as much as wearing strange and unusual clothes. That’s exactly how clowns grab children’s attention. Playing a certain role (such as the police officer or a ninja warrior) will teach your kid to appreciate humor as part of the acting.

• Watch cartoons

There are thousands of hilarious cartoons that you can watch with your children and you should dedicate some time to this activity, too.

• Read funny books

Besides cartoons, there are also funny books that can contribute to the development of your kid’s sense of humor. And it also has some great side effects as your little ones will get used to reading books and learn to read more quickly.

• Tell an embarrassing story

Embarrassing situations can often be extremely funny. Every now and then, you should tell your child a story where you made a fool of yourself. It will make the kid laugh but it will also reveal that embarrassments are not completely bad after all.

• Give encouragement

You should encourage your kids to practice and build their sense of humor. Be their role model and inspire them to act silly. It’s a game of chance in the beginning – sometimes they will do well and sometimes not so much. But you should keep supporting them nevertheless.

• Laugh even when it’s not funny

The best way to give encouragement to your kids is to pretend that they are funny even if it’s not the truth. Do this and your kids will improve humor through self-confidence.

Conclusion

The sense of humor is not only a source of fun but also a real-life quality that can help your kid to make friends, improve communication skills, and boost creativity. That is why you should encourage children to develop this valuable skill and exercise it in everyday situations. In this article, we gave you a list of 10 ways how to develop your kid’s sense of humor. Make sure to use them and let us know in comments if you have other useful tricks in your bag.