“First, children learn that words have meaning, and then they learn that certain words have special power,” said Lawrence Cohen, Ph.D., author of the book “ Playful Parenting.” Bodily functions, he said, have a special intensity, which extends to the words that describe them. The primary reason that kids find off-color humor funny is simple: It gets a rise out of adults.

So why is bathroom humor so very appealing to kids? How should we understand these impulses? And how should we set limits around its use? The appeal of a good poop joke Picture, for example, a child bowing before entering the dojang and making fart noises. It’s heard in the classroom and on the playground, and unfortunately it makes regular appearances at the dinner table.Īnd it can drive us parents a little crazy, especially when uttered at the wrong time and place, like, say, taekwondo class. This happened the same week he’d renamed his favorite They Might Be Giants song “Birdhouse in Your Butt” (you may know it as “Birdhouse in Your Soul”), and not long after his soccer coach vetoed “Diarrhea” as the team name.įor children of a certain age, toilet humor is a source of great delight. “You poopy butt,” he said to the lizard, and then, as if that wasn’t clear: “You stinky, poopy butt, glitter glob.” The other morning, my son picked up his toy lizard, looked it squarely in the eye and threw down the worst insult his 5-year-old brain could summon: This story was originally published on Nov.

Lawrence cohen playful parenting