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I vaguely remember my son's first crawl, his first steps, and the first time he said "mama." But I really remember the first time he swore.
It was shortly after he had turned 3. He was playing with his toys in the other room, and I'm guessing he was getting frustrated because, for the zillionth time, his zoo animals weren't fitting in his zoo truck. Suddenly I heard: "Fuck it chuck it!"
I froze.
My first thought was:
Did I just hear what I think I heard? Then I wondered:
Is it bad if I laugh? Because that was kind of hilarious. Finally I got around to musing:
Shit, what do I do now? I surmised that he didn't really know what he was saying - that he knew from the (of course very few!) times he had heard the F-bomb uttered by me that it was an emotive word and that he was feeling emotional and had decided to try it out. But I guessed that he didn't know it was a
bad word and that he certainly didn't know its literal meaning. (I don't know where the "chuck it" came from, but doesn't it perfectly capture how you feel when you're frustrated with an object? Fuck it chuck it indeed!)
I contemplated marching into the room and confronting him -
Sweetie, do you want another cheese stick, and also, why did you just say, "Fuck it chuck it?" But in addition to fearing that I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face, I wondered whether drawing attention to the phrase might be a bad idea.I also contemplated flat-out telling him that
fuck was not a good word and that he shouldn't use it. But in the end, I did nothing, and over the course of the next few months, his use of the phrase fizzled. I was happy, of course. And also a little bit sad.
When it comes to kids and swearing, there are a few things you should know. First, it's inevitable. "Don't think you can prevent swearing - you're doomed to failure if you think that's going to happen," says Timothy Jay, a psychologist at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, who has been researching profanity in kids for decades. "We've recorded
fuck and
shit in every age range that we've studied." If kids don't hear swear words from you, Jay says, they'll hear them at school, on TV, or at the rec center - and then, yes, they'll try them out at home. Research
suggests that by the time kids enter school, they know 30 to 40 offensive words.
When you do hear your kids curse, by far the best way to respond is calmly - if you respond at all. With young kids, "the less attention paid, the better," explains Tovah Klein, director of the Barnard College Center for Toddler Development. "When children get a big rise out of the adults, that can solidify the use of the word because the attention was big -
Wow, that really bothers daddy!" So if you don't react, the words tend to disappear faster, she says.
Still, sometimes the bad words linger even when you ignore them. Then what? "
The worst thing is to yell or scream," Jay says -
and please don't wash your kids' mouths out with soap, he adds. If your kid is over the age of 8, you might try explaining that curse words can be offensive. "Say, 'Well, we don't use that word. That might hurt Grandma's feelings,' " Jay says. "Try to get them to think about how that word sounds to somebody else."
If your kid is younger than 8, though, this approach probably won't work, because little kids have trouble putting themselves in other people's shoes. Instead, you might start by trying to understand why your kid used the word in the first place. "Say, 'Hey, that's an interesting word - where did you hear that? Do you know what it means?' " Jay suggests. Then, proceed in one of two ways. You can tell him it's not a word he should use at home. But that approach can backfire, because what you've just done is given your kid a weapon that he can fire at you when he's upset or wants your attention. A potentially better approach, Klein says, is to allow your child to use the swear word within limits. "Tell her, 'Some people don't like that word, but in your room you can say it anytime,' " Klein says.
This gentler, more empowering approach also circumvents what might be called "the shame problem." As Klein writes in her book
How Toddlers Thrive, parents often unintentionally shame their young children when they criticize them and try to control their behavior. "If the message to the child is that these are bad words, never to be used, then the child can feel that she is a bad person for having tried them out," Klein explains.
Plus, chances are, your kid doesn't know what these bad words actually mean and why they are bad; she just knows that you have anointed them as bad. Some research suggests that children who've been made to feel ashamed are more likely to withdraw and hide than own up to future mistakes. (This doesn't mean you shouldn't discipline your kids or set limits; just be careful not to chastise them in a way that could make them feel humiliated.)One last thought: If your kid has developed a nasty potty mouth, you might be wise to try to identify the source of the bad language and limit it. Has he been sneak-watching
The Wire? Binge-reading Hunter S. Thompson? Perhaps it's more likely that he's been overhearing
you as you talk about your mother-in-law.
Kids have an amazing knack for not listening when you want them to, but the reverse is true, too: They are often keenly paying attention when you think they aren't. And ultimately, "a parent who swears a lot," Klein says, "will have a hard time getting her child not to." Well, crap.
..... and their wimpy-ass approach to raising kids nowadays. A bunch of liberal shit-for-brains, no doubt.
When our kids first started swearing, we would set them down and literally scream at the offender, "You little bastard! Don't be an asshole and swear in front of ANYBODY, EVER AGAIN! You got that, dumb-shit? Only assholes swear."
Or we'd yell at them, "GODDAMMIT! How many fucking times do we have to put up with this shit of you little turd-monster swearing your tiny ass off? Cut the crap, you little dick head!" And we meant it!
For some reason, our approach failed miserably, and the kids continued to swear unabatedly, no matter how many times we yelled or lectured them. In fact, for some weird reason we never understood, they seemed to engage in profanity even MORE after our loudly administered 'lectures'. WTF?
As my wife and I are both wildly over-paid high-level strategic military planners with the US Department of Defense currently, we were shocked our approach utterly crashed and burned, having had so many shining successes over the years with US military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, LIbya and elsewhere, we were sure our approach would be supremely victorious, just like the American military always is.
And yet, despite our stoutest efforts on the domestic front, our kids continued to swear like little troopers.
So, instead of constantly fighting with our kids about it, we decided to pursue a standard American approach when anything becomes difficult: we cut and ran, and voluntarily gave them both up to child protective services (CPS), once and for all, and have never regretted that decision for even a moment since! Problem solved, American-style. Let CPS worry about it from now on.
That was a while back, and both kids have since died while in CPS's loving care, but that's no longer our problem, thankfully.
Besides, that'll teach the little pricks to be potty-mouths! They finally learned their lessons (the HARD way!) Now, THAT'S what we call 'tough love'. ;-)
Happy 'Thanksgiving', and always remember: Don't chew off your tongue when it's in firmly in your cheek!