Children's sense of humor

Sense of humor is one of the many appealing human qualities. From the age of 16 weeks onward, children begin to laugh in response to horseplay. Many babies before the age of one year laugh at the banter of others, even though they cannot directly take part in it.

At the preschool level, children develop a sense of the comic when they are able to express their humor through language. Among the situations that tend to produce laughter are surprise, defeated expectations, incongruity, another's smile, sudden relief fron strain, playful give and take, and sudden feelings of superiority or degradation. At this stage, laughter seldom occurs as a form of derision or expression of superiority because of another's coming to grief, or of vindicativeness.

At the elementary school level and beyond, children begin to appreciate relationships in size and space. They are able to laugh at incongruities which they did not notice before. They may find it humorous when younger children make mistakes similar to their own mistakes at an earlier age. A great proportion of children's humor, at least as represented by "favorite jokes", deals with topics that are slightly if not entirely taboo. These jokes often express motives or impulses which have been suppressed and could be condemned if expressed in a more direct way.

While jokes have a comic flavor, they often deal with themes that are not basically comical. An undertone of seriousness appears when children, through jokes, express envy, or give a ridiculous turn to a common human predicament, or play with desires under the guise of foolishness. In joking about the foibles of others, or about his own, a child may be trying to make light of his own difficulties.

Older children, like adults, frequently use humor in a hostile way by making someone the butt of a joke. But they also use humor in a friendly way to share their feelings with others. Thus, while humor sometimes expresses malice, it also often voices a form of compassion. Although most children eventually like to think of themselves as having a sense of humor, no children will admit or express regret about being without such a quality.

I enjoy making friends who have a sense of humor and I like kids with this personality,too.