When your child uses a swear word - Page 2

[Vermillion]

Butt?

wow... :LOL

[moma justice]

we let our dd cuss, we cuss, and we will soon help explain the social aspects of when and where (our dd is not yet 2)
today we were in the garden and she said, "be careful mom, you might see a f-ing snake"....all serious...
we did see one the other day (a coppers head) and it freaked me out and she heard me cuss a bunch of words when telling dh about he snake (i almost grabbed it while working ht edirt with my hands and watching dd with my eyes!1!!!!!!ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)

and the other morning she was half asleep and half awake and she mumbled "i want some f-ing boo-boo"
boo-boo is our word for nursing

i woke up dh adn she mummbled it again
we were silently laughing our a$$es off!

her favorite is damn dog!
that is also my dh's favorite

as long as she is not cussing at people then i am fine with it.

[irinam]

Originally Posted by nonconformnmom

- she rarely hears them at home -

Rarely, but she does and hence copies it.

We don't swear around kids and/or around our older relatives. Period. Heck, we don't even use words like "ugly" or "disgusting" :LOL

So our younger one (almost 5) has not heard those words yet, hence did not try to copy it.

Our older one "miraculously" understood that those words are not to be used in the family and we have not heard him curse in our presence.

However, she will still hear it outside the house sooner or later. Depending on your outlook on the swearing per se you may : start teaching when and with whom it is NOT OK to do it and watch your own language around the house.

If you want to use one of the instances when she says the word as a teaching/explaining moment an you think your DD is ready for that (she might not be yet), by all means do it.

Othewise, i'd just let it go. Certanly at her age it did not have any "evil" meaning to her

[armonia]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

Butt?

wow... :LOL

I know! She made me feel : for saying butt. I told my daughter's father that I almost made a new friend but I said "butt" and "crap" and ruined it. :LOL

[girlndocs]

Originally Posted by mamaduck

Try hard not to laugh?

We've always tried to take it in stride, but we do let them know (in the spirit of imparting information) that some people would be angry to hear a child use that word, and they may want to avoid using it around grandma or at school. And then we offer something they could say instead, to express the same feelings.

:

We discuss how some words make some people uncomfortable. I tell Ds I don't understand exactly why ('cause I don't), but that's the way it is. And we discuss how it's considerate not to use a word around someone if they're uncomfortable with it. So he finds substitutes, or I suggest the person who has a problem with the swear word give him a substitute.

My nephew suggested Ds say "Fudgsicle!" and at his nana and grandpa's he says "Buttermilk" :LOL

[meemee]

with my 2.75 year old dd i would ignore it. just let it slide. but that is her personality. if i say something about it i am drawing her attention to the word and so then she will repeat it to get a reaction out of me i still ignore it. i usually find it goes away.

when her dad was visiting her only one time did he forget and swear what the f***. oh my dd loved that. i dont think she reacted to the word. but to the emotion with which it was expressed. seh was 2 then and we just ignored it. i bit my lip hard not to LOL.

i find swearing as being v. natural. how can u not comment. so since i swear somewhat moderately i changed the word to oh shoot. my dd loved that. today she swears. if she drops by mistake she uses it. she uses it v. correctly. and i dont stop her. i've heard her swear a handful of times when she is concentrating so i dont see her using it outside.

in future i will tell her some words are bad but will not try to stop her from swearing.

oh irinam disgusting is one of our favourite words. it creates a lot of laughter in the house. both my dd and i like how that word sounds and its meaning. we mostly use it as a joke with eeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww!!!

[Bearsmama]

My DS (3.5) has occasionally said a "bad" word. Usually it's b/c I've used the word first (like "freakin' . I've tried very hard to ignore it completely, and this seems to work the best for us. However, a few months ago the neighbor girl used the word "stupid" and I made a big deal about saying that it was an "ugly" word and that we don't use that word, yadda, yadda, yadda. Well, that just seemed to ENCOURAGE him to use it more. We're still dealing with it. Now, however, we just ignore it. And when he sees that it's not getting any rise out of us, he usually stops using it. I don't know if this is the right way to handle it, but it's what's working for us.

[Piglet68]

Thing is, I know where DD gets it from: us! We don't swear alot, but when we have an accident or some other such thing, we're known to swear. So really, how can I blame her? It is hard not to laugh when your DD says "ooohh Sh********t!" in the same intonation EXACTLY as I do!!

Anyways, we've explained to her that it's okay to use these words around us, but that they would upset some people. For example, grandma does not like to hear words like "dammit" so we mustn't use them aruond her b/c we love and respect her and don't want to upset her. She seems to get it. And if she does it "on purpose" around grandma then we just don't make a big deal out of it.

She's never used it TO someone or as an insult. That would be a different ballgame. But then WE don't use words like that, so it hasn't occurred to her to use them that way.

[TiredX2]

Originally Posted by armonia

I thought I had made a new friend recently. We seemed to have a lot in common. I got some chickens from her, and she had asked if we wanted to come to a party. We kept talking and I said something about one of the chicks had crap on its butt. Anyway, she told me that she does not cuss (we say cuss in Texas haha) around her kids and that she doesn't say butt. She said that if her kids hear her say butt, that they know she is mad. So basically if we come to the party, not to talk like that. Well, she hasn't called me since she heard me say "Butt". :LOL

Butt is where I draw the line. I try to adjust my language to other's comfort levels but BUTT stays. We have neighbors who INSIST on using the term "bon bon" and I just refuse to do it. Ass, butt, bottom, buns, whatever. I will not use the term bon bon unless it is an ice cream treat.

[gaialice]

I posted various times about my strategy about swearing because that is one of my GD successes. I took it word for word from "Playful Parenting". If dc call someone or something in an inappropriate way we just say "Oh, how do you know his/her/its secret name?" "Don't tell anyone that name, it is a secret.... But you know what I know its super secret name, but I cannot tell you... It is a secret..... " Then they will want to know, and I will wisper in their ear "It is Ouagadougouuu" (or anything else ..) Everybody gets a big laugh out of this. You won't beleive it but they have totally stopped the bad words. It helps that I never use any of those words and my dh tries hard not to. I must say I think that two girls, 4 and 2, cannot really understand when it is appropriate to use that kind of language, so I prefer not to hear it from them at all.

Mom to 4-year-old dd1 and 2-year-old dd2

[AnnasMominPA]

Like Gaialice I took my strategy from "Playful Parenting". The word my DD was saying was "shut up". It isn't a curse but it was very annoying. We tried explanations, time-out, and ignoring it and none of those methods worked. Finally I tried one of the "Playful Parenting" techniques. You can say "shut up" but you can't say "snickernoodle" (or anything else ..). At our house if you say "snickernoodle" you will get hugged and tickled. Now when she says snickernoodle we act upset in an over exaggerated way and we tickle her. If we say "snickernoodle" she can tickle us.

For a while she would say "shut up" and when I ignored it she would then say "snickernoodle" then she would get the attention she was looking for. It was kind of funny.

My DD is 3 so I'm not sure if this method would work with an older child.

Angela

[mamazee]

My 3-year-old started calling people "stupid". I told her that people felt bad if they were called Stupid, but people don't mind being called silly so maybe she could say that instead of stupid. She started using silly and stopped calling people stupid.

I'm not concerned about swearing but I don't like the idea of her calling people names that would make them feel bad.

[AdoptChina]

We don't use swear words around the kids, and they dont use them around us.....with the older kids I've told them that I dont care what they say as long as they arent saying it around young children or elderly people ( people who would be offended etc). With the younger kids I tell them that s**t isn't a very nice word, and we think of something else to say. I don't get upset or make a big deal out of it so it's never caused them to say it more to try and get attention. I have a fond memory of Jared being around 2.5-3yrs old and sitting in the back of the car....he yelled DAMMIT!!!!! really loud and it was so hard not to crack up. I told him that maybe that wasn't the nicest word to say and maybe he could say darn it instead......well several times that week he'd innocently walk up to me and ask "which one is the one I can say....dammit or darn it?"...Id reply and they he'd walk off saying DARN IT!!!!

I just tell them that there are many more words that will express exactly what they are feeling and to try and use those instead (like instead of yelling a swear word b/c you are mad at your brother, it may work better to say AHHH, it makes me mad when you keep touching my toys...or something along those lines)

[Mothra]

I have a filthy mouth. I embarrass my husband sometimes. For some reason, my 7yo never started cussing. I can't remember a single time when he said a "bad" word. He picked up all the preschool potty words, like "stupid-head" and "baby-head", at his preschool all you had to do was put "head" behind any word and it became an insult, but he never picked up my choice words. My 3yo hasn't either, but I watch my language a lot more now that there are other young children running around.

It just isn't a big deal to me as long as the words aren't being used as insults. We have talked to my 7yo about how some words make certain people uncomfortable, but I'm at a loss as to how to explain why. He was really into giving the finger for a while, so we told him he could only do that in the car. That's where he learned it in the first place. That was three years ago, and every now and then I'll look back and see him sitting in the back seat with two little birds sitting in his lap.

[armonia]

Originally Posted by AdoptChina

I told him that maybe that wasn't the nicest word to say and maybe he could say darn it instead......well several times that week he'd innocently walk up to me and ask "which one is the one I can say....dammit or darn it?"...Id reply and they he'd walk off saying DARN IT!!!!

:LOL

[CJNeeley]

I'm still working on this one. It tends to come up after visits to the grandparents houses. For example, when J was around 1.5 he picked up 'god **** it' from my father (who curses incessantly and I'm surprised he didn't pick up more or worse) I was horrified whe he came home saying it especially since he barely used any words at the time. But we quickly figured out he associated the word with his grandfather, almost as if he thought it was some novel word only his grandfather used, and just we sort of ignored it not wanting to encourage it. Well, in just a couple of days the word "grandfather/grandpa" would elict it (as if it was his name or something) so we began referring to him as "mommy's daddy" for a while until it blew over. Around 2.25 J picked up saying 's***' when something goes wrong from his other grandparents. We tried ignoring it again, but apparently that made him feel it was normal to use. So I tried telling him 'we don't say that word we use uh-oh, oops, or oh no' (which I honestly do, but my husband actually says s*** it just saw more occassion to come out at their house) to which he usually shrugged his shoulders. Until finally my 2.5 yr old said to me one day "No, you say uh-oh, I say s***." I didn't know how to react to him other than to stare at him with my mouth wide open so I didn't right then because I didn't want to say something I hadn't thought about and make it worse and went into my room to think about it. He apparently thought it was ok now because he said it again not 5 min later. I took that as my opportunity, to explain that "Yes, you're right mommy doesn't use that word and she would like for you not to either, especially around her. Some people do use it [he interrupts with 'daddy, grandma..' so I raised my hand in a stop signal so I could continue] some people do use it but it really started out being another word for poop [because honestly the etymology of the word is to defecate] although people don't always use it that way. You're not using it that way, and mommy wants you to know what you are saying. I wish you'd say uh-oh or oops because they help you say they you are upset or shocked at your accident, which is what I think you mean." He just stared at me for a while before he went to go play and I felt like maybe he really didn't understand and that I just overwhelmed him with too much information and I probably did, but oh well part of being a parent is making it up as you go along right? But I let it go after that he knew I didn't like it I'd told him for months so I didn't see a need to repeat myself everytime he said it but I think starting the next day when he'd say it he look at me and say "sorry." So I figured he at least understood the 'please not in front of me' part. After a while he started trying not to say it and he says "ooooh nooooo!" alot now which he really seems to favor since he can draw it out. But he's still working on it and so I now get things like "Uh-oh. S***! Ooops, sorry mom." And I know he's trying so I'm not too worried about it, but I haven't a clue what to do when the next word comes.

So I too wonder, what do you do with young kids if you don't feel like it's ok and ignoring it doesn't help and asking them not to say it doesn't help? I don't want to shelter him from the people he's picking them up from (not to mention he'd hear them somewhere else if not from them) but I'm not sure if he's actually old enough to understand not to repeat them. I don't want to act like they are "bad" words because I don't want him to feel that the people he hears using them are bad. What lilyka said really made since to me, but I kinda feel like maybe that's still a bit advanced for my little ones. For those of you who ignore it, in your experience does it help them stop or does it just allow it to become a habit? For those of you who allow it at home, but not outside the home how do you explain the double rule thing to a toddler; or did your kids just pick it up when they were older and more able to grasp two sets of rules?

[artgirl]

armonia:
my 2.5 yo dd actually said "butt juice" the other day in reference to the cat and her plugged anal ducts. Do you think your friend would mind? :LOL

[armonia]

Originally Posted by CJNeeley

For those of you who allow it at home, but not outside the home how do you explain the double rule thing to a toddler; or did your kids just pick it up when they were older and more able to grasp two sets of rules?

My daughter is 4. I explained it to her like this: I told her that she can say anything she wants to around mommy. She understands what I mean. She knows other kids get in trouble for saying "bad" words. If she says something she looks at me, and makes her eyes big and kind of grins and says quickly "Only around you mommy!"
The reason I do not mind is because I want my daughter to be comfortable saying or telling me ANYTHING. I do not want her to be embarrassed, or feel like a subject is "bad" and she shouldn't say it to me. Just like the other day, she was playing with a Ken doll we got at Goodwill. She said "Mommy, why doesn't Ken have a penis?" I said "I really don't know". She said "Because they are stupid?" I said "I guess so." Not that penis is a bad word or anything (stupid of course isn't so great but I let it go because she was kind of right in that case!). I just think it is since we have such open communication and knows she can ask me things or say anything, she doesn't hesitate to ask me questions like the Ken doll question.

That is too funny (and gross) :LOL artgirl.