Help Your Child Develop a Sense of Humor

Humour Complements Intelligence

by Alice Cahn

When I was little, my parents showed me a good time by taking me to the zoo, a local duck pond, the beach, or the playground. I was out in the world, learning words and names for things from family and friends.

When I started school, the words I learned from the early readers were words I used in real life. From a rich experience of the real world, I came to school with a strong vocabulary and memories from a multitude of real-life experiences.

As a parent myself now, I am eager to take my 7-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son out to visit a neighbor, or to the grocery store, or to the playground. More and more, however, I find that our time for outings is taken up with "homework." Sit-down-pick-up-your-pencil-fill-in-each-blank-and-it's-due-tomorrow homework. If this were a once in awhile occurrence, it might be fun or good practice, but it's four nights out of five and weekends, too! How are they going to understand the words "zoo" and "park" and "giraffe" without ever seeing what it is that the word is naming?

Somehow we've lost track of the fact that the work we do as parents is supposed to COMPLEMENT the teacher's work - not necessarily mirror or mimic it. The teacher is in a classroom most of the day with anywhere from 15 - 25 children who must be taught to read, count, sort, classify, construct, deconstruct, analyze and master. The teacher is responsible for training the child's convergent thinking -all the knowledge that every well-educated child must master for both his/her own good and that of the community.

But there's another realm of thinking that is equally critical to success. That's the divergent thinking - the original thinking that comes from putting one or more of those convergent ideas together in a brand new way. It's the divergent thinking that's brought us such useful innovations as the telephone, the phonograph, the electric light bulb, and my own personal favorite - the television.

You used to come home from school and turn on the television to relax, unwind, and be someplace other than school. There were cartoons and adventure programs, news programs and a lot of other kinds of programming that, like your parents or family, introduced you to new and different experiences or pictures of those experiences. Some of it was factual and a lot of it wasn't. Some of it converged with what you were learning at school and a lot of it didn't.

What we are seeing now, albeit with everybody's absolutely best and most loving of intentions, is pressure upon both parents and television to focus our energies upon the classroom experience and the convergent learning going on there.

We all want our children - as early as possible - to say the alphabet, count to one hundred, name colors, and to raise their hands, stand in line and sit quietly. But we also want our children to smile and laugh, to have good friends, to handle stress with grace and confidence, to take on life with joy and pleasure and optimism. In a culture that demands so much and puts so much pressure upon us all - even our youngest - how are we to do that?

The experts agree: our children need a healthy and well-developed sense of humor if they are to successfully and happily manage every day life. Our children are not born with a sense of humor - it is something they learn; and their ability to find "the funny" is based upon what they know. Children with a sense of humor grow up to be adults with a sense of humor. And adults with a sense of humor enjoy life more - their relationships are more successful, they enjoy better health, and they are better able to deal with stress and difficulties.

Humor, laughter, intelligence, and creativity develop hand-in-hand in a young child. How is that? Think about it - you have to understand something in order to get the joke. If you're one year old, you need to know that a sock goes on a foot in order to laugh when mommy puts it on her nose.

Children love to make jokes because it is a wonderfully fun way for them to demonstrate new skills and knowledge. Try calling Daddy "Mommy" and watch how your three-year-old howls in delight. Encourage your child to show what he or she knows, and then laugh along with your child so they know that a sense of fun and humor is a good thing. Your jokes will improve as your child gets older - I promise.

A sense of humor in a young child is good for that child - but it's also really good for the people with whom that child works and lives, and for the rest of the world that struggles to cope and to advance, grow, and develop.