How would you like to have every child in the audience laughing and enjoying themselves? How would you like the parents, or whoever is hiring you, to be so impressed they hire you to come back next year and perform? You can have a successful show and repeat performances if you follow my four tips for doing magic for kids.

Kids are in a world of their own. To succeed with them you will need to forget all the sleight of hand you learned. All those funny punch lines that worked great for adults won’t work on children. Children don’t want to see all your hocus pocus miracles, they just want to be entertained. With that in mind, here is a list of things you must do in order to have a successful children’s magic show.

1. Audience Participation Is A Must
Children love to be part of the show. Include them in almost every trick. There are two types of audience participation. Bring a child from the audience up to help with a trick, or ask the audience to stay in their seats and participate by shouting out magic words, etc.

2. Use A Magic Word
Children always love to think they are creating magic through the use of a magic word. Now you shouldn’t use just any old word. Most magicians use “Hocus pocus” or “abracadabra”. I have found better success using just some random crazy word, like “Penguin” or “I love turtles”. Most everyone is expecting a magic type of phrase, so when you blurt out a random word or phrase, it catches him or her off guard. Children love silly and it’s always good for a laugh.

I also recommend you use your sponsor’s name as the magic word. After all, they are paying your salary. Another great phrase to use as the magic word is “Happy Birthday ______”. You insert the birthday boy or girls name in the blank.

3. Forget The Adults
At many parties where I performed, there were also a lot of adults. Sometimes almost three to one. Just remember you are there to do magic tricks for kids, not the adults. So forget about them and concentrate on the children.

4. Use Lots Of Visual Gags
Children love this more than the hocus pocus. You could enter with one untied shoe. You trip over the loose shoelace. As you bend over to tie the shoelace you hear a large ripping sound and everyone thinks you ripped your pants (insert laughter here). You stand up and comically try to look at your behind (more laughter). Just doing gag after gag will keep the kids laughing. Make sure to sprinkle some magic tricks in for the kids too.

Just applying these four rules when doing magic tricks for kids, will ensure everyone has fun. After all, isn’t that the goal? Time for the parents to relax and for the kids to be entertained. So don’t worry about all the fancy mumbo jumbo, get out there and just have fun.