The Effects of Humor on Children Developmentally

A sense of humor is a trait that almost everyone loves. It is important to learn how comedy is developed throughout our childhood to understand the significance it has in our lives. Comedy influences the development of children’s characters, confidence with social connection, and their own sense of humor; specifically responding to and generating.

Comedy can help build a child’s character by helping establish coping skills and also behaviorally it can change a child. In The Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing the author suggests that a sense of humor can have an effect on overall health, especially in cancer patients (Dowling, Hockenberry & Gregory, 2003). A sense of humor can actually bring out a more mature personality as it allows for a chance to cope with and process loss. It can also make children more understanding and help them grieve. An article by Childhood Education also supports the claim that humor can help children grieve (Mercurio & McNamee, 2006). This leads into the thought that a sense of humor can physically make a human healthier, it is known that a sense of humor can mentally make us happier but it also makes us healthier. When a person is healthier mentally and physically they are able to fully embrace who they are as a person. This also allows clear thinking, meaning that we are consciously aware of what is going on around us and that we know the consequences of the decisions we are making. Even though you want to be thinking clearly, it is also important to be able to have fun and enjoy your time. This supports the fact that a sense of humor in necessary within a child’s development because it allows them to have more fun and teaches them how to live healthy lives, mentally and physically (Dowling et al., 2003).

Character is primarily defined by how the outside world sees someone. Comedy can be an influential part of someone’s character. A person’s character is a vital of aspect of interaction in our world because almost everything we do is based off of our character. The British Journal of Visual Impairment stresses the point that humor can be useful in developing friendships. This could have a direct correlation to the fact that humor builds children’s characters, in the sense that a person’s character usually reflects the kind of friends they make and if they make friends. The author also explains the difficulties of being hearing impaired and that learning how to have a sense of humor is important for people with hearing disabilities. A lot of our comedy is verbal, so it is possible that people with hearing disabilities may be missing out on some of it. For them to be able to learn how to be funny and to respond to something funny is really important because otherwise they miss out on a fun part of life. A study by the Journal of Intellectual Disability Research aims to learn how children with disabilities like to recieve humor (Degabriele & Walsh, 2010). Knowing this information allows for consideration that a sense of humor is a learned element in our lives. The concept of learning how to have a sense of humor at an older age could be very useful in displaying how as children we develop our sense of humor, as this information can give us a greater insight on the effects of a sense of humor in the brain and within our personalities (Pagliano, Paul, Zambone, Alana, & Kelley, 2007). All of this leads to consideration that humor, which is a learned element in our characters and personalities, can change how children act behaviorally different with or without a sense of humor. This explains how children with different perspectives on a sense of humor act differently and even develop differently.

Building confidence and social connection in children in our generation is the very opposite from what the society tells us. Comedy is one way that we can build those up. In an article by Early Childhood Today the author, Ellen Booth Church, explains how humor can be beneficial in a kindergarten classroom. A sense of humor can help keep a child’s attention and can help children to put words to what they see going on. This conveys how humor can build a child’s social connection, as they are learning how to use their words and communicate. Using humor in the classroom can also be helpful when teaching grammar and phonics, for example the author used silly songs in her classroom (Church, 2005). Back-in-the-Day songs, specifically folk songs, used to be a way for a large group of people to connect and feel comradery. Songs help build up confidence in children by allowing them to practice and possibly perform in front of a large group of people. Having a sense of humor is important in all of this because if a child messes up during a performance, or at any other time in life, they will be able to move on. In my elementary school all of the students had to either join choir or band. This was in part due to the fact that it helps children gain confidence and also due to the fact that music actually engages all part of your brain at the same time. In an article by the American Journal of play the author talks about how play can affect a child’s development similar to how music affects child development. The author also explains how learning how to play as a child can influence our sense of humor as that is a big part of playing (Gordon, 2014).

Socially humor is a necessary part of life as it allows for fun and enjoyment in a conversation. In an article titled, “The relation of humor and child development: Social, adaptive, and emotional aspects,” the author suggests that humor is the basis of our social interactions. Humor or comedy is often how we get others attention and is also when we determine who we find funny we are subconsciously choosing who we want to connect with socially. The author also states that early exposure to humor helps to increase a child’s understanding of humor and helps to develop their sense of empathy (Semrud-Clikeman & Glass, 2010). Empathy can be a vital part of our social connection, it is necessary if we want to relate to others as it means that we care how others feel. William Hampes wrote an article called “The Relation Between Humor Styles and Empathy,” in this article he states that empathy “is associated with satisfying interpersonal relationships” (Hampes, 2010).

Exposure to comedy can help build a child’s sense of humor as it allows for children to be able to create and respond to comedy on their own. An article from Infant and Child Development describes the development of clowning and other types of comedy between infants and parents. The author presents that humor is very complex as it has many different roles and factors, but yet infants still understand it to a certain extent. The child is understanding that your actions are funny or bring them joy whether they understand the meaning of them or not. Clowning is a very effective way to develop a humorous relationship between you and your child because it allows the child to see someone attempt to make them laugh. Then watching this attempt repeated over and over the child begins to understand that there is humor behind this action. The fact that the child is learning to understand that what the parent is doing is funny and then also being able to reciprocate it gives great insight that children develop a sense of humor at as young of an age of 3–6 months old (Mireault et al., 2012). These infants are not mentally capable to understand what humor is but they can decide what appears funny to them. At a very young age humor has to be very obvious and humor increasingly grows less and less obvious as we age. This is because we understand humor better as we grow older. A study done by The Journal of Neuroscience explains how humor reactions change at different ages of childhood (Neely, Walter, Black, & Reiss, 2012). This information allows us to understand why such a simple act as clowning can be perceived as funny to infants but is no longer funny as we age.

Responding to humor can be a vital part of how children’s humor develops. It is one thing to be able to generate humor as a child because humor is all around us and is an essential part of our day. In her article Eleni Loizou describes how pictures can induce laughter in Kindergarten aged children. The author explains that there is a four step process that happens in the brain to determine if the child finds the picture funny. Children describe the events in the picture and then have to figure out how to relay that information back or describe the image they are seeing (Loizou, 2006). As children mature their sense of humor matures, this study can help us determine where school aged children’s humor maturity level is at. A study in The British Journal of Developmental Psychology tested to see what kinds of humor children enjoyed and found similar results. Children gave different responses to different humor and their responses changed over time (Hoicka & Akhtar, 2012). This information is then used when making TV shows and movies for children, as this helps the producers know what will be funny and in essence what will succeed. This is essential information for anyone in the entertainment industry because it can also show us how fast a child’s sense of humor can grow.

Humor response can vary based on the kind of humor provided. In an article by Sroufe and Wunsch, the authors found that an infant will laugh faster or easier based on a sound or noise rather than an image or item. The author explains how certain items appear to elicit different amounts of laughter in younger infants than older infants. For example “lip popping” and “blowing hair” each received a high amount of laughter from the infants studied (Sroufe & Wunsch, 1972, p. 1329). Which are similar to the results Hoicka & Akhtar found in their research (Hoicka & Akhtar, 2012). Each month the categories that have the strongest response were visual and social, instead of tactile and auditory. This evidence gives us information about what type of source will bring the most laughter from an infant. Again this can be useful to companies and industries looking to sell an item to that specific age group. This information is useful in determining how children develop a response to humor. This lets us know that at their young age most infants can or have only learned how to respond to verbal or auditory humor, meaning that these are some of our the first forms of humor we develop and are able to respond to.

Culture may have an effect on our sense of humor, different cultures are brought up with different standards and stereotypes about humor in their generation. Some cultures are not encouraged to respond to or generate humor the same way that others do. Each culture has different topics that they take seriously. For instance giving someone a thumbs up in some cultures means good job, but in others this gesture is rude and is an extremely inconsiderate action. The authors of an entry in the International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education state that as an infant your sense of humor is on a reaction basis instead of a created basis, meaning that we do not know how to (Guo, Zhang, Wang, & Xeromeritou, 2011). The author also found that humor is related to the development of language. Another author from Bookbird supports this cultural influence on humor development, specifically in children’s reading comprehension (Rahman, 2000). This supports the argument that humor is related to a child’s development as humor is related to learning language. As the author states that humor can also affect a child’s speech patterns and their vocabulary, as humor allows children to develop different parts of their vocabulary. For example if a comedian is using a metaphor or sarcasm, it is important for children to learn how to understand that kind of language in different contexts.

Generating a response to comedy is a natural part of our lives that we learn to develop over time. In an article by Laura Tallant, the author is looking at a child’s humor from a “carnivalesque viewpoint”. There are two steps to a comedic response, which are pleasure and displeasure. This offers “carnivalesque viewpoint” an important insight on the nature of children’s humor and how children act with or without an adult present. Explaining how children develop their sense of humor on their own. The author of this article talks about a study in which a group of children were brought together and left without their parents supervision. In this study researchers wanted to find out what children thought was humorous when the children’s parents weren’t around. This study also showed how perceive humor differently when they are with other children around their own age (Tallant, 2015). In another article by Tallant in which she explains how children use humor to create a carnival or performance (Tallant, 2017). Humor is a developed process, we can infer this because adults have a very different sense of humor than kids do. Children are also able to create very different types of humor than adults.

The Journal of Research in Childhood Education suggests that humor is necessary to navigate daily life. There has been a misconception that very young children do not develop a sense of humor until 18 months old. The author has found in children that there are more than just the traditional types of humor, this includes “clowning, teasing, verbal reproductions” (Cameron L., Kennedy, Katherine, & Cameron C., 2008). Giving evidence that as children we can expand our knowledge and understanding of generating comedy. This directly relates to the article by Sroufe in that it the most common kind of responded to comedy is verbal or motion related comedy, and that kind of comedy is also the first reproduced by children (Sroufe, & Wunsch, 1972).

Humor affects development within a child in their character, confidence with social connection, and their own sense of humor; specifically responding to and generating. All of this evidence suggests that humor is beneficial in so many ways in our lives developmentally. We should be encouraging children to laugh everyday.

References

Cameron, E. Leslie, Kennedy, Katherine M., & Cameron, Catherine Ann. (2008). “Let Me Show You a Trick!”: A Toddler’s Use of Humor to Explore, Interpret, and Negotiate Her Familial Environment during a Day in the Life. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 23(1), 5–18.

Church, Ellen Booth. (2005) “Group Time: Taking a ‘Humor Break’ at Group Time.” Early Childhood Today, 19(4), 60–61.

Degabriele, J., & Walsh, I. (2010). Humour appreciation and comprehension in children with intellectual disability. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 54(6), 525–537.

Dowling, J., Hockenberry, M., & Gregory, R. (2003). Sense of Humor, Childhood Cancer Stressors, and Outcomes of Psychosocial Adjustment, Immune Function, and Infection. Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing, 20(6), 271–292.

Gordon, G. (2014). Well Played: The Origins and Future of Playfulness. American Journal of Play, 6(2), 234–266.

Guo, Juan, Zhang, XiangKui, Wang, Yong, & Xeromeritou, Aphrodite. (2011). Humour among Chinese and Greek Preschool Children in Relation to Cognitive Development. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 3(3), 153–170.

Hampes, W. (2010). The Relation Between Humor Styles and Empathy. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 6(3), 34.

Hoicka, E., & Akhtar, N. (2012). Early humour production. The British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 30(Pt 4), 586–603.

Loizou, E. (2006). Young Children’s Explanation of Pictorial Humor. Early Childhood Education Journal, 33(6), 425–431.

Mercurio, M., & McNamee, A. (2006). Healing Words, Healing Hearts: Using Children’s Literature To Cope With the Loss of a Pet. Childhood Education, 82(3), 153–160.

Mireault, G., Poutre, M., Sargent‐Hier, M., Dias, C., Perdue, B., & Myrick, A. (2012). Humour Perception and Creation between Parents and 3‐ to 6‐month‐old Infants. Infant and Child Development, 21(4), 338–347.

Neely, M., Walter, E., Black, J., & Reiss, A. (2012). Neural correlates of humor detection and appreciation in children. The Journal of Neuroscience : The Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 32(5), 1784–90.

Pagliano, Paul J., Zambone, Alana M., & Kelley, Pat. (2007). Helping Children with Visual Impairment Develop Humour: A Review of the Literature. British Journal of Visual Impairment, 25(3), 267–279.

Rahman, M. (2000). Humor in Urdu children’s literature. Bookbird, 38(4), 37–41.

Semrud-Clikeman, M., & Glass, K. (2010). The relation of humor and child development: Social, adaptive, and emotional aspects. Journal of Child Neurology, 25(10), 1248–1260.

Sroufe, L., & Wunsch, J. (1972). The Development of Laughter in the First Year of Life. Child Development, 43(4), 1326–1344.

Tallant, Laura. (2015). Framing Young Children’s Humour and Practitioner Responses to It Using a Bakhtinian Carnivalesque Lens. International Journal of Early Childhood, 47(2), 251–266.

Tallant, L. (2017). Embracing The Carnivalesque: Young Children’s Humor as Performance and Communication. Knowledge Cultures, 5(3), 70–83.