What's funny at every age
Babies love repetitious noises or sounds, repetitive motions, games of imitation, and peek-a-boo.
Toddlers and twos are old enough to recognise incongruity - they know that older children don't crawl, so when a teenager gets down on all fours, they laugh.
Three- year- olds feel confident and laugh at situations that highlight incompetence. They are also able to appreciate a more sophisticated level of incongruity.
Four-year-olds find jokes about body parts, sexual feelings, and anything pertaining to the bathroom to be hilarious. They are very easily provoked by the slightest “off-colour” joke.
Five- year- olds love knock-knock jokes, although then not quite ready to understand puns. They also find humour in daredevil tricks in the playground.
Six and seven-year-olds enjoy riddles, puns, and physical humanlike pratfalls (which everyone likes, but children this age have a special appreciation for).
Keep in mind that young children don't understand sarcasm. Being sarcastic with children serves only to confuse them and make them feel inadequate or silly.
Submitted Eva Nislev, from “Make ’Em Laugh” by Greenburg & Polly. (Scholastic Parents & Child, Sept, 2002, Vol 10.)
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