Why humor is hard for autistic/ADHD kids and how we can help!

(You can listen to this podcast episode HERE or watch it on YouTube HERE.)

August 16 is 'Tell a Joke Day!

At Starfish Social Club, our big thing is helping kids choose the reputation that they want for themselves, then we teach them the things that they can do to create that reputation AND the things they might be doing currently that are taking them further away from that reputation. It's pretty common for our students to engage in behaviors, habits, routines, etc that they think are getting them closer to the reputation that they want, but are actually moving them further away. So in our program at Starfish Social Club, we focus on both. What are the things that we can start doing, and what are the things that we might want to think about not doing any more.

We have a week when we talk specifically about having a reputation for being funny. Not all of our students care about having a reputation for being funny, but we don't want any of our kids to have a reputation for being NOT funny. Some of our kids don't laugh at anything. Some of our kids get annoyed with other kids when they try to be funny. So we don't want them to have a reputation for being NOT funny.

One of the reasons humor can be difficult for our kiddos is because we tend to be black and white thinkers. We tend to think in terms of all or nothing, this or that. There's not a lot of gray in the brains of people who are neurodivergent. Especially with autism, a little bit less so with ADHD, we tend to be pretty black and white. That makes some forms of humor difficult to understand. Puns can be difficult to understand because they require you to think about something in more than one way at the same time. I noticed a lot of my students just don't really understand puns or other other wordplay jokes. Jokes that require prior knowledge that our kids might not have are difficult for them to understand sometimes, jokes that have to do with pop culture, references that our kids might not always get... There's just a lot of factors that go into why humor can be difficult for some of our students.

When it comes to being a humorous person, one of the hang-ups that our kids come across is, because we are so black and white, we tend to be rule followers. One of the big ways I see this play out when it comes to humor is that our kids will pay attention to what the group thinks is funny, and they will try to emulate that. I can think of multiple examples where one student said something, maybe even randomly, and the other kids thought it was funny and laughed. Another student immediately started saying the same thing. So they watched this situation, they heard what the first student said, they saw that the other kids thought it was funny. Because we're black and white, and because we're rule followers, we now have a new rule that this phrase is funny to other people. So then Student B picks up this phrase that was just said and maybe starts to say it too much. Maybe it's still saying it two weeks from now. Maybe is still saying it even though nobody else is laughing. And might even continue saying it even after people asked him to stop. It's because of this black and white thinking, this tendency to be rule followers. We've just picked up on a rule that this thing is funny because we saw it being funny. We saw other people appreciating the humor. And so now someone will come in and try to continue carrying it on. It can even happen with things that we do. We may do something one time and notice that somebody laughs, and so we keep doing it over and over because we noticed that it made somebody laugh that one time. So that can be a hard thing for our kiddos to understand.

There's a there's a phrase called 'was funny once'. Things are funny maybe one or two times. After that the only way things continue to be funny is if they become an inside joke. At Starfish Social Club, the kids have multiple inside jokes going on that started with something somebody said or did. And the kids just keep talking about it and keep laughing about it! Some of the jokes have been going on for years. But they're only funny to the kids who know what they're about. That's the criteria for an inside joke is when a new student comes in, the new student doesn't see the humor in it because they don't have the history. They don't understand. Really the only way that repeating something over and over is still funny is if it becomes an inside joke to the group, which usually is NOT the case.

If you wonder why your kiddo says things that other people have said, or repeats things off of TV, or quotes characters from movies where they're saying something funny, this is why. It's because they have picked up on the rule that this thing made people laugh. And so they keep trying to do this thing! It's actually a really great way to learn from our environment. If your kiddo is doing this, it shows that they're paying attention to their social world.

Unfortunately, humor doesn't really work in such a predictable way. We can't really take something that somebody said and say it ourselves and have the same outcome. If you've ever tried to tell a joke that you saw someone else tell, (maybe you saw comedy special and you tried to relay a joke to a friend), you know it just doesn't relay the same way.

Another thing that I've noticed with my students is that they don't really have a concept of people being different ages. I actually just really noticed this recently. During game time we have all ages of students here from seven to 22. They can be in different groups in different rooms, they can choose who they want to play with, but they're all mixed in together. I've noticed lately that some of the kids who are older do not have a concept that some of the things they're talking about or joking about aren't really appropriate for younger kids. It doesn't mean that they are inappropriate in terms of that they're vulgar or sexual, but sometimes they're just things that younger kids have no concept of or don't really understand. It's just not something that's going to make a younger kiddo laugh or that a younger kiddo would even be able to comprehend as being funny. We're really working on helping our kids recognize this concept.

Some of our students are in group text together and the same kind of challenges happen when they don't realize that in the same group text there may be an 11-year-old and a 17-year-old. Even though they might not be talking about anything that's inherently inappropriate, it may be things that an 11-year-old might not have a concept of, or might not have the maturity to think is funny. So we're starting to work on helping our kids recognize what things are funny and what things are appropriate at different ages. It doesn't mean that the kids can't talk about whatever they want to talk about, it just means we have to think about the group.

We had some middle school kids a few weeks ago talking about texting girls. It was a totally appropriate conversation for their age. We just asked them to go to a different room away from the younger kids, because that's just not a topic for the younger kids to really be exposed to when that's not something that is appropriate for their age level at that time. That doesn't ever mean that we don't want them to talk about things that are age appropriate. We just want them to recognize that if there are younger kids in the group, we need to keep our topics general, generic, and G-rated (to continue the alliteration). It's just a matter of helping our kiddos be more aware. It's really common for kids with social learning challenges to get along with younger kids. If that's the case with your kiddo, you may just want to monitor for that. It may be something that you need to have some conversations about, maybe they're trying to use age appropriate humor for their age, but it's not landing with the kids they're hanging out with that are three, four or five years younger than them. I find that once I make that connection for a kiddo, it really helps them see things a little bit differently.

Another thing that we focus on when it comes to humor is recognizing that not everybody has the same sense of humor. There are some people who think everything is funny. Anything you say, anything you do, it's funny! There are some people who are selective in our humor. There are things that we really like, and things that just aren't funny to us. For me personally, I love puns so much! Both of my favorite jokes are puns. I can't even tell them without cracking myself up. So I love pun humor. But there are other kinds of humor that just aren't really that funny to me, like political humor. We all have our own references for what we find funny and what we don't. And then as I mentioned previously, there are some people who don't really find anything funny.

One of the contentious topics at Starfish Social Club is potty humor. We've talked about this for several years, and it kind of has gone all over the place. We've had times where nobody in the group thinks potty humor is funny, they think it's immature and gross. Then we've had times where everybody who's in the group that day is cracking up because somebody farted! We've kind of been all over the place.

A couple weeks ago, we had a conversation with our summer camp group because we noticed that some of the kids were intentionally farting in the group, were talking about farting, were talking about other people farting, etc. Then there were some kids who were just really disgusted and disturbed by the whole thing. So we had everybody come into a room together, and we asked the kids who think farting is funny to raise their hand. Everybody noticed there were three kids that day who think farting is funny. Then we asked everybody who doesn't think it's funny to raise their hand. I think that day there were eight students who didn't think it was funny. So then the conversation became: 'Those of you guys who think it's funny, look at the other kids who have their hands raised. That's who you can talk to about potty humor and fart jokes! That's who you can fart around. But look at everybody who didn't raise their hand. If you choose to fart in front of them, if you choose to talk about potty humor in front of them, they are not going to think it's funny. They're probably going to think you are annoying because that is not their sense of humor. And now in this room, we've established that.'

But it doesn't mean we teach our kids to not fart in front of other people or to not use potty humor, it means we teach them how to read the room and find other people who like their same sense of humor. It doesn't mean that you can't be who you are. At no point is that the concept that we teach. What we teach is to find other people who share your interests or your humor, and go be humorous with them. So it's kind of like selective humor, paying attention to what people find funny, and then going and joining that group. That's another cool thing at Starfish: Because we have different rooms, we can have different groups, and we've got all kinds of different stuff going on. If there's a group that's talking about something that one of the kids just doesn't really like, like inside jokes or fart jokes, they can go join a different group. We tend to get groups who are really rowdy and rambunctious, and groups that are really quiet and calm. The more kids we have, the more often options and opportunities they all have to find other kids who are like them!

Another thing to add is that sometimes our students will use shock humor. This means talking about things that are inappropriate no matter how old you are. This could be talking about things that would be considered obscene or gross, talking about death, sex, body parts, etc. Just things that, in general, make other people feel uncomfortable. Sometimes I'll notice that we'll have students who do this as a way to get other kids to laugh. One of the things that we talk about in our lesson on humor though, is that just because someone's laughing does not mean they think it's funny. Once kids understand that, it can be a game changer. So I'm going to say it again: Just because somebody is laughing, it doesn't always mean they think it's funny.

Sometimes people are laughing at us, not with us. And sometimes people are laughing because what we said or did made them uncomfortable. Laughter is just one of those weird things that happens at inappropriate times. A lot of us laugh when we're uncomfortable. This hasn't happen to me in a long time, fortunately, but previously I would have really heated arguments and discussions with someone in my life and at times I would start laughing. It was because I was just so uncomfortable in that situation. Now that I'm not in that situation anymore, it doesn't happen to me anymore. But it's really important to help our kids understand that just because someone's laughing, doesn't necessarily mean they think something's funny.

At Starfish Social Club, kids give each other feedback. We had a new student that started a couple months ago, who would talk about sex, body parts, death, things that that other kids might kind of snicker at, but not because they think it's funny. They started giving her a lot of feedback. She was being asked to leave the group at times because she was talking about things that the other kids just did not want to talk about. We made significant progress over the course of the summer because she was able to get feedback from other kids. And then we were able to teach her more socially appropriate ways to interact with other kids so that she can start to make some authentic relationships. When we think about all the different kinds of challenges that our kiddos can have when it comes to humor, you can see why humor can be really difficult for them.

Another concept to keep in mind is code switching. Code switching has to do with adopting different sets of behaviors depending on the context. We all code switch. Some of us do it more and in a more extreme way than others, but we all do it. Do you act differently around your spouse than you do around your boss? If you're on the phone, will people that know you well have a general idea of who you're talking to? We tend to talk differently to different people, whether it's your kid, whether it's your partner, whether it's a friend, whether it's your mom, we just tend to talk differently to different people. That's a form of code switching.

Our kiddos tend to really be bad at code switching because we are rule-based. Once we learn that this is the rule for interacting with people, kids tend to just kind of stick to that rule. They don't really change the way they behave or the way they speak around different groups of people. One of the ways this can be really challenging for our kids when it comes to humor is if you have certain things that are inside jokes in your family, or things that your family just really finds funny. Your kiddo will think that everybody finds that thing funny, or that it's something to share with everybody. And I've had a couple times with a couple different kids where this really showed. They said something that is an inside joke in their family, but the person they said it to found it really offensive. In another situation, it was a student who had one certain type of humor that he and his dad shared. But when he talked to me that way, it was pretty awkward. This means we have to be mindful of the jokes and the humor that we have in our family.

There are two different ways that we can handle code switching. For our kiddos who are really black and white, my suggestion is to limit the amount of code switching that is required of them. So don't have inside jokes that would be inappropriate for them to say around other people. Don't talk about things that you wouldn't want them to share with other people. For those kiddos who really just can't really grasp the concept of code switching, don't require them to do it! Unfortunately, this means taking away some of those personal things in our family. But it also means alleviating some of the burden off of our kids when it comes to how they interact with other people. Even things like: Do you expect your kiddo to shut the door when they go to the bathroom at home? You know how I can tell if you don't? Because they come to Starfish and don't shut the door when they go to the bathroom! That's a great example of code switching. If your kiddo really struggles with these concepts, don't expect them to do as much code switching. Have the same expectations at home that they would have in public. Things like: Is your kiddo allowed to take food off your plate? If they are, they're probably going to do that in other situations as well. You can take a day and just analyze your kiddo's choices throughout the day. Notice if there's any of them that may be an issue if they're doing it in class at school, or with friends in the neighborhood, or even on a date if your kiddo is old enough for that. Just thinking about the habits, the routines, the humor that you guys have at home, and if it is appropriate for them to be doing in other situations.

For your kiddos who are a little more flexible and adaptable, talk about the concept of code switching! Talk about how this is what we do at home, but when you're on a date, this is what it would look like. Or when you're hanging out with friends, it might look like this. Or when we're at a restaurant, it looks like this. So for kiddos who have the ability to understand that, it's definitely a great conversation. As they get older, we want them to be able to code switch, we want them to be able to feel comfortable having a more professional presence at work, a more casual presence around friends or a different presence if they're out on a date. We want them to be able to code switch. So if we feel like they're able to understand that concept, we definitely want to talk to them about it!

Happy 'Tell a Joke' Day!