Something that parents may have not considered is if their children can understand when they are being “sarcastic,” and an expert is telling us that they cannot. Sarcasm is something that adults use almost every day, and they don’t put too much thought into it. They use it in their language, and they pick it up in other’s language and they don’t think about whether this is something that we are born knowing or if it is a part of child development. However, parents do know that their children take everything they say very literally, showing that they are not capable of picking up on the sarcastic language.
According to The Conversation, sarcasm is defined as someone saying something, but they obviously mean the opposite. This is done to either hurt someone’s feelings or make a joke with no ill intention. It is important for parents to understand that children cannot pick up on sarcasm.
It is important because parents can unintentionally hurt their child’s feelings or cause a tantrum because the child did not understand what their parent was trying to say. Experts are saying that the more we understand how children develop when it comes to sarcasm, the more they can help children understand this form of communication.
Children will not begin to understand sarcasm until they are about 5 to 6-years-old, before a child is that age, they will hear sarcasm and take the message literally.
•This means that if a parent says “nice going” to someone who has made a mistake or an accident, the child will respond with a sincere “thanks.”
•Even when children start to understand the sarcasm and that the speaker is not actually saying that, they will interpret the person as being a “liar.”
It isn’t until a child is closer to 10 years old that they can truly understand and appreciate sarcasm and how it works. These age guidelines for sarcasm were found in a study that was published in the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology and can be read in full here.
The research detected that the reason children cannot understand sarcasm is due to language development and empathy, skills that children are not born with and need to be developed over time. This can be a gentle reminder to parents that children are absorbing everything you say as a literal message, and we need to be mindful about what we are saying to our children.
Sources: The Conversation, APA