Humor and Child Development

After the last post, I started thinking about humor and how it is used. One very important thing to know is that a sense of humor develops as our brain's develop. Young children do not understand complex wit or sarcasm. In fact the use and understanding of sarcasm don't develop until sometime in the mid to late teens. Sarcastic humor can actually be very detrimental to children before they understand it's complexities.

Example: A popular student is having a bad day and complains about being picked on and how no one likes them.

Humor Response: (with a smile and a twist of humor) Oh, nobody likes you? That's probably true. Everyone always talks about how they can't stand to be around you. That must be why you always walk down the hall with about 25 friends!

For a student who has a developed sense of sarcasm, this is clearly a way of showing the silliness of their complaint. But imagine how a student who has not yet developed this sense might feel. They will take it literally. The incongruency of the last sentence from the first sentences will likely be lost on them. They will focus on the literal words that the teacher said and may take them to heart.

It pays to be careful and evaluate a child's ability to find humor in situations before using sarcasm with them. Some people develop this skill later in life, while some seem to never quite grasp sarcasm. Although sarcasm is a very fun and useful form of humor, it needs to be wielded with care.

For those able to grasp sarcasm, here are some fun cartoons on social issues such as body image, drug use, and overpopulation.

Rebekah Engle is a teacher in an alternative high school. She is very involved in her community and writes a local blog called Look What's Happening in Salem.

Using Humor as a Tool

Getting a connection with a young person is imperative if you want to have any kind of influence in their life. Humor is a great way to keep things light while still dealing with real issues.

In my classroom the success of a student is directly related to how well I can connect to them. It is especially important for students who feel detached from education and from the education system. If I can use humor to break through the walls they have put up, I can usually get the connection needed for their success.

When you are teaching, in a classroom or just in life, you are asking kids to change the way they think, do things they've never done before, and push their boundaries. If that gets too intense, they often just give up. Humor helps lighten things up and make people happier (and happy people are much easier to teach than grumpy, negative people).

I use humor when I'm tired of asking a student to do the same thing a hundred times. Asking them in a humorous way makes them listen because it's not the same old thing they've been tuning out forever. It keeps me from having to be a nag and gets the whole class involved in a sort of positive peer pressure.

Humor also combats fear. You have to be willing to laugh at yourself and let them see that you make mistakes and that it doesn't stop you from moving on. It combats fear (of failure, looking dumb, making mistakes, being laughed at, etc) and it is comforting to know that other people aren't going to take every little thing too seriously.

For more humor resources on social issues click here.

Rebekah Engle is a teacher in an alternative high school. She is very involved in her community and writes a local blog called Look What's Happening in Salem.