By the preschool years, kids are humor veterans. After all, they’ve been smiling and laughing for years.
Humor is important in a child’s life because a sense of humor is essentially an intellectual and emotional skill. It grows as your preschooler does. Kids are always finding new things funny while developing a better understanding of the world.
Humor is something you can enjoy together. The benefits of a good sense of humor are well documented and include better health, increased optimism, higher self-esteem and greater emotional intelligence.
The best thing is that these benefits are possible for anyone. Research shows that a sense of humor is learned, not inherited.
Your child is also probably using improved language skills to play with words, like calling objects or people by the wrong names. Ask, “Where’s your nose?” and your child is likely to point at his or her eyes or chin. Kids this age often like to mispronounce or make up words.
Before long, kids will start replacing words in familiar songs, like singing “Twinkle, twinkle, little cat” and experimenting with the same song for days or weeks by using new words.
Kids this age will also start to tell little tales in a humorous way. You may find your child claiming to have eaten his or her spoon or to have hidden the dog. These stories may or may not be accompanied by a smile, but some preschoolers are very expressionless.
Having a humorous attitude and playing with your child every day are two ways you can help develop your preschooler’s sense of humor. Be open, playful and willing to laugh. Make sure you respond to his or her “jokes”, even if they are repetitive. You may have heard the same joke a million times. Your preschooler will also love it if you engage in his or her kind of humor, whether it’s putting your gloves on your ears or pretending to ice skate on the dining room floor.
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Posted In Children's, Health Information, Women's
