Why kids love bathroom jokes

Here’s a riddle for you: What do you call a duck that gets all As?

If you know the answer, you’re probably a kid. Or you have a kid that regularly comes home armed with new jokes.

But what’s up with being funny anyway? At what stage to children start finding things amusing? What shapes their humour? At what point do they start laughing their heads off at kiddie jokes and why on earth do they love faecal humour so much?

These are tricky questions to answer. That’s why I asked humour researcher Willibald Ruch. He also told me why children use their toothbrush to comb their hair and why some adults still love a good pee and poo joke.

By the way, a duck that gets all As is a wise quacker.

Still miles away from kids’ jokes: how children’s humour develops

«Babies already smile right after they’re born,» says Willibald Ruch, Professor for personality and assessment at the Institute of Psychology at the University of Zurich and humour researcher. However, this first type of smiling has nothing to do with humour. Medical experts assume it’s caused by uncontrolled muscle contractions. Humour develops later on during your childhood.

Initially, this happens when you’re playing peek-a-boo or tickling your newborn, for example. Your baby will laugh and the happy parents will laugh along with it, beaming with joy. Professor Ruch knows: «Kids that age will laugh at anything that’s surprising without being threatening.»

Level one of child humour: things that don’t match are funny

Later, when children are between one and two years old, they’ll laugh at things that are incongruent or inconsistent. That is, when something happens that isn’t consistent with what the child has learned. The prerequisite for that: the child knows the two things don’t belong together (they recognise the contradiction) and finds it amusing to combine the two. Let me give you an example. «Kids might use a toothbrush as a comb to brush their hair,» Ruch explains. Or they’ll laugh their head off when a spoonful of puree ends up on the floor instead of in their mouth. This incongruity amuses toddlers to no end. If the adults find it amusing too, that makes them even happier. Children realise early on that humour is something adults like.

Starting at around two years of age, language comes into it. This is closely followed by an interest in (their own) faeces. They love to express this by making fart sounds and the like. They also take great satisfaction in realising that mum and dad aren’t as amused by it. It’s when the foundation is laid for the fascination with pee and poo jokes. This is around elementary school age, when children are able to actually tell jokes. Up to this point, it’s only the child’s first sensing that they’ve touched a taboo by farting or making gagging sounds.

For older children, funny words alone won’t cut it anymore. Nonsense will have to make sense to them. In other words, the incongruity needs to be unravelled or understood. Around the age of six, a cognitive component is added. For example, a funny riddle such as «How do we know that the ocean is friendly? It waves.» Kids enjoy coming up with the solution and take joy in understanding it. Ruch says: «At this age, understanding the joke is more important than having a laugh.»

Why kids love bathroom jokes

Do children generally have more to laugh about? Yes and no. According to Ruch, the fact that children laugh more often than adults is not due to their age, but to their circumstances. Other researchers, such as Eva Ullmann of the Deutsches Institut für Humor, (German institute for humour) however, say that children never laugh more than they do when they’re three years old. After all, children have more time for fun and games than adults, who in turn are often busy solving tasks and concentrating. Silly or cheerful things are more of a distraction. In other words, not only do kids have more time to laugh, it also takes less for them to do so. Sometimes a single word is enough to have a whole school class in stitches.

Think bathroom jokes. Why do kids love jokes about pee and poo? Humour researcher Ruch explains it as follows: «Children enjoy breaking taboos and, unlike adults, have a sense of humour that isn’t very visual. A single gross word will often be enough to ignite roaring laughter among kids.» Meanwhile, parents are blushing or giving each other worried looks. However, if parents try to stop their kids from telling these kinds of «dirty» jokes, that will, of course, fuel their desire to break taboos even more. So take it easy, mums and dads.

Kiddie jokes: why humour matters

There’s another good reason to keep cool and smile at kid’s jokes as parents. An extensive study conducted by social psychologist Marion Bönsch-Kauke has found that children with a sense of humour are more emotionally and socially competent. They’re better at understanding others and are usually appreciated by them. Bönsch-Kauke published her observations in her book «Psychologie des Kinderhumors: Schulkinder unter sich» (The psychology of children’s humour: schoolchildren among themselves) published in 2003.

In any case, humour helps children learn a lot about social life. And their humour changes over the years. According to Bönsch-Kauke, children from the age of about eleven to twelve are enthusiastic about irony and satire. That’s also when they’ll increasingly expect their peers to deliver witty humour; childish jokes are no longer very popular at this stage.

So to all you parents who are having to endure the pee and poo phase: your torment will end at some stage. At least in most cases. Humour is a very personal matter. Or to put in humour researcher Ruch’s words: «Depending on their personality, even some adults still enjoy bathroom jokes or anything to do with excretion.»

What can I say, dear mums and dads? I feel for you and am keeping my fingers crossed.