Gifted Issues Discussion homepage
Posted By: Ania Stand up comics- any kids in that cathegory??? - 07/08/08 02:56 AM
Well, basically what I have asked in the subject question - any of your kids are clowns??? I have one!
Oh boy, do I have one!

Lately DD6 has been referring to me as "Babe"
She is six and routinely attempts to pick up boys sixteen years old and older.
Tired, but if I can remember the specifics of anything particularly hysterical I will post later.
Check out George Carlin, lately passed. Apparently he was gifted and of course hysterically funny, if you go for that sort of thing. Dropped out of high school, his entire family were dictionary-ophiles, had an obsession with words and word sounds/combinations from a young age, etc., etc.
(hope this is the right interview...)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4136881

My dd2 is pretty funny and enjoys making a good joke, she is routinely mixing up her colors and I thought she just didn't know them, but when I ask her to get her red socks, she goes right for them (or whatever color). She just enjoys making me laugh when she calls every color 'green' - you can see her looking at you very expectantly waiting for you to laugh..
She will sneek up on your drink or sandwich and make as if to steal it, hand poised, eyes shifty, waiting for you to notice her treachery and then runs off laughing. It's too fun. Can't wait for more.
GS8 saw a skit at 4H camp in June. A boy played a ventriloquist and his twin was the 'dummy'. They did a routine that featured a song GS8 had never heard. I saw the skit at the closing program, GS saw it for the second time then. He memorized the song and can mimic the 'dummy's' movements. He & I are going to do the skit for a talent show at our church campout in a couple weeks. I explained 'ad libbing' to him last night and he caught on perfectly. He is really looking forward to this.

He's always loved joke books and telling jokes at school. The problem is most of the kids his age didn't get the joke. I've had to discourage the class comedian role a bit.
DS11, sometime between age 2 and 4, was riding in the carseat, in our SUV, said -


DS, tentitively: 'Big fish eat little fish?'
ME: Yes dear.
DS, Loudly, as if delivering a punch line:'Big Cars eat Little Cars!'

then he burst into howls of laughter.
One of the reasons my son liked learning new words and studying the dictionary before age 5, was so he could make more jokes. One of his friends used to ask me every time he saw me if my son had said any funny things since the last time he saw us. This friend says that my son notices everything and I have noticed this is especially true if it has any comic value. He can make me laugh until I am in tears and he does the same with his adult sister, who calls him several times a day because he is fun to talk to. I love to read with him because in addition to serious discussion about whatever we are reading, he will notice something funny about what we read that I would never have noticed. He can make jokes about almost anything, including being dyspraxic, puberty, everything except math. He never thought math was very funny and I think this is one reason he didn't like it as well as other subjects.
When DD was an infant and watching the Baby Einstein DVDs, we noticed that she caught the nuance of jokes and would laugh at appropriate times.

Now she is 3, nearly 4 and for a while she has been "working" at being the comedian. Telling jokes, trying to be funny. She went through a stage of saying wrong answers, thinking it was funny. Last year she started with the knock,knock jokes.

Ren
Today I was watching a show called "A Haunting" and my 10 yr old son stopped to watch for just a minute. He saw a woman in her supposedly haunted house checking the shower to see why the shower had suddently turned on by itself. She pulled back the shower curtain to find no one there and the shower had turned off on its own. My son quipped "I guess it just wanted to cleanse its spirit."

Yesterday, while watching junkyard wars, I said something about how they were recycling when they turned junk into a running vehicle. He quipped "but the environmentalists still wouldn't be happy because it has a gas engine."

But when he is with his friends, I notice that he uses more "boy humor" that his friends think is funny. Like when he was answering trivia questions one of the questions was "Which sport uses these terms: dunk, dribble, and downtown?" He knew the correct answer but instead he said "Oh, of course I know that one--it's a "peeing contest" and then went on to describe each of the terms. His friends seem to enjoy his humor.
LOL!!!!!

It sounds like your son has some pretty intuitive coping skills. DD8 is really good at that too.
DD6 uses more sophisticated humor on the teenagers. Last year with the 5 yo I did hear her cracking them up with toilet humor.

It's good to be flexible?
© Gifted Issues Discussion Forum