Helping Your Preschooler Develop a Sense of Humor

Humor is one of the most exciting milestones that takes place during your child's early development. It develops gradually, beginning when your baby utters her first giggle at around three months of age, and becomes more and more complex as she grows and matures. During the preschool years, between three and five, your child begins learning not just how to laugh at jokes, but also how to make them and tell them.

I was excited when my three-year-old first started making jokes with me. Like a college-age boy, she cracks recurrent jokes about fictional characters, online viral videos, and lame puns. This phase is exciting for two reasons: it lets me know that she has the mental and emotional capacity to "get" humor, and it also adds a fun new dimension to parenthood.

You can help your child develop a sense of humor in several ways. These tips can be especially handy to the moms of children with developmental delays, such as autism-spectrum disorder.

1. Make jokes often. Make jokes all the time throughout your preschooler's day. This makes parenting more fun and also helps your child's sense of humor develop. No matter how dull or cheesy your jokes are, spill them out throughout the day. I like making absurd and sarcastic observations, like pointing to our pet rabbit and announcing that he's a ferocious lion. I also crack very simple jokes by twisting words slightly-- saying "boonoonoo" instead of "banana" and "poopy" instead of "puppy." I'm not a queen comedian, but, to my three-year-old, I'm the funniest person in the world.

2. Introduce her to jokes she can tell. The internet and your local library are both overflowing with clean, preschool-friendly jokes. Yahoo! Kids offers over 2,000 jokes that are both comprehendable and age-appropriate to average preschoolers. After hearing the same joke two or three times, your preschooler is likely to start telling it herself-- even if she musses the punch line a bit. Be prepared to answer the same knock-knock joke twenty times a day until your child decides it's no longer funny.

3. Let her know what you find funny. I may be unusual in this sense, but I'll often let my preschooler in on whatever it is that I find humorous. Provided a joke is non-sexual, non-violent, and unoffensive, I don't see any reason to block kids from grown-up humor. So, when she sees me laughing to the point of tears over a LOL Cat picture or something funny that a friend said, I'll tell her what I'm laughing at and why I find it amusing. This helps her to learn the dynamics of humor and makes her feel included in a tiny facet of the mysterious adult world.

4. Encourage her attempts at humor. Even if your preschooler's jokes don't always make sense or aren't always funny, laugh at them anyway. Preschool parenthood is actually pretty funny most of the time, and a sense of humor is essential for surviving your kid's journey into adulthood. When your child cracks a joke while stuck in line at the grocery store, join her in cracking up about it-- and maybe reciprocate the humor with your own joke. The preschool years pass quickly and wonderfully. Laugh when you can.

5. Discourage any hurtful humor. As a mom, I take bullying and cruelty very seriously. I would prefer that my child laugh all day at fart jokes than laugh at someone for looking or thinking differently than her. For this reason, I would stop my daughter dead in her tracks if she ever started laughing, or making mean-spirited jokes toward, sensitive issues such as race, orientation, or disability. Mean humor and bullying are issues that I will never tolerate in my home under any circumstances.

Unless your child has special needs, it's unlikely that she'll need much help learning how to make or understand jokes. And, while it isn't essential to include humor in your parenting, it can make the experience of preschool parenthood all the more enjoyable.

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