AIBU to ignore my 4yo swearing and hope it goes away?

[yukoncher]

I'm really afraid to speak about this one, and me and DH are just hoping no-one notices in public, or at his preschool.

DS has SN significant speech delays, and tantrums with frustration of not being understood. Won't be starting school at usual age 4, undergoing assesment, etc, arg.

He's started swearing :(
It's mine and DH fault, because he's heard us using bad language.

My initial thought was to pretend I didn't hear him say it and not react at all, so me and DH did this and are being really careful not to swear now.

DS is now coming out with some really colourful lines when he gets frustrated, swearing like a trooper, like putting all the bad words he knows together in one line.
I can just imagine some other mumsnetter on here saying 'AIBU a kid swore today in supermarket and mother didn't do anything!!

[Ballyxxx]

Ds took to saying 'fuck off' a while ago, He is only 2.4 and it was from overhearing dp and I say it (not in an agressive way, more a 'He'd slap my bum and id tell him to fuck off kind of thing)

Anyway we completly ignored him, didnt even glance at each-other and after about a week he was over it.

My Sil and I actually had a discussion on this last week. I was telling her about ds and she said she has told her 5yr old that it is an adult word and her and her DH are allowed to say it but children are not, I told her i thought it was very hypocritical to say that to a child. I hate that kind of 'do as i say, not as i do' attitude.

[cannydoit]

sorry didnt read about the language delay, that will teach me to not read a post properly.

[Ballyxxx]

Sorry forgot to spellcheck

[cannydoit]

i can understand that ballyxxx but there are plenty of things that adults do that children cant like drink, smoke, have sex, stay up late, not eat our vegtables but we still encourage our children not to do these things even if we ourselves do them.

[alistron1]

I had this with DS1, the only one of our kids to swear. He was about 4 too. My mum suggested that we used 'fiddlesticks' as a 'swear' in order to replace 'fuck'...DS1 turned it into fiddlefuck.

We tried ignoring too, that didn't work either. It was an excruciatingly embarrassing period but he grew out of it.

DP and I don't habitually swear either - despite what outsiders hearing DS1 might have thought!

[smudgethepuppydog]

I work in the nursery/early years department of a special needs school, some of our pupils first words are swear words. I have no idea why they are so much easier to pick up, we spent years saying "Look X, duck" Only for X come out with 'c**t' when we sang good morning to them at circle time one morning. It was loud and clear, we didn't know whether to celebrate X's first word or cry

We ignore swearing unless the child is at a point where they can understand why we don't use those words. Other than that we just repeat the sanitised word back to them like others have suggested.

[youarekidding]

smudge I work in EY/nursery SN school too. I know what you mean with the attack of conscience wanting to celebarate words but ignore the swearing. If it helps C**T has become 'can't' for us. So if they say it we say 'can't? oh yes you can look, look how good you are at....' and distract them to an activity they are good at. Its very hard when your mouths like this tho!!

One pupil does swear and do it for attention - so its ignored with no glaces at each other etc. Its hard though because he's 4yo and very very cute and loving - he has learnt though this gets a reaction.

He is doing it less so it must work.