Would you wash mouth out with soap of 12 year old Son

[SilverStreak7]

He KEEPS using the C word .. Out of all swear words I hate that the most .. Would you wash his mouth out with soap ? I am aware he may swear outside (which Im not pleased with) but in front of me disgusts me . .

Jesus, you can wash my mouth out with cake.

It's always been about physical punishment, even in schools, until recently. I wonder how this will affect society and the next generation. I think children of previous generations WERE better behaved and more respectful than todays youth. Personally i don't and never have had to with my own, no more than a tab on the hand if something was dangerous, but both my children have disabilities so it's not a normal situation.

Great Fenton's back 5mins and gets deleted for a laugh, but no-one gets to see the joke.

again.

Business as usual

Put your feet up Olivia, and

allforone I'm sorry (though not surprised) to hear it was part of a pattern.

I'm 34, it was certainly not the norm where I grew up. I was assuming you'd be my parents' generation at least.

But the age thing is a bit beside the point. While I can see that normal people of a certain generation might have solemnly done the soap-washing-mouth thing as a cultural norm, I don't think anyone, of any age, would call an 8yo a fucking whore, scrub their face till it bled and give them a black eye unless... well, unless they were a seriously abusive parent.

No way, My kids swear but in a nice way, so pissed off, WTF, such an arsehole etc, I have always said time and place and they do, as they are older they respect that, never had any trouble from school, they use it sparingly because I've never made an issue. However they have not used the c word and the swearing was only acceptable when they were 14 plus.

My dad used to do this to me. Please don't do it.

I wiped DD's tongue with a flannel once (no soap) She'd been eating blackjacks and was in a right mess. Does that count as abuse?

Oh, just read allforone 's post- desPite the mouth washing I never had anything like that - your mum called you a whore and gave you a black eye? Wtf?!

If you think it was normal to do that to an 8 year old, then I'm afraid it has done you some harm.

I have a 3O year old DD and I can assure you it wasn't the norm.

Be wary of a family swear box! Some friends of ours had one of those and were confident they would be quids in. Until the day they were stuck in traffic en route for the airport and a very important flight. The kids were in the back looking gleeful as daddy turned the air blue. "You owe us a LOT of money, Dad!" they trilled.

That's a really stupid question, MrsA, in the context of this thread. Why did you ask it ?

Done to me for either lying or swearing, had the pleasure of sampling both soap and washing up liquid! Granted it worked but, would never do it to one of my DD's!

It is abusive, no two ways about it. And saying that it didn't do any harm is a typical way of minimising what has happened. I'm not suggesting people rewrite their childhoods, but if you look at it rationally, it's a bloody barbaric punishment. And, Allfor, I am fairly certain that being told you look like a "fucking whore" by your parent isn't and never has been the norm. I feel really sad for the 8year old you and sorry for you now that you've been conditioned not to think this was a horrible thing to do.

YES! DO IT!
My mum did this to me when I was younger and I have never sworn in front of her since (I am now an adult woman and wouldn't dare use the C word in front of my mum!). I think it is incredibly disrespectful and will not hesitate to threaten my children with this

You don't actually need to use soap, I think just rubbing a flannel on his tongue and giving him a good telling off will have the same impact.

Abuse? Eeeeesh. The world's gone crazy.

But why is "it worked because I never swore again" any sort of justification for physical assault? I'm struck by the fact that everyone who's said "yes" so far has said this and nothing else about why it's a good idea. Cutting the child's head off would "work" too.

WTF goes through someone's mind as they restrain a child and rub a flannel in their mouth? Don't you feel like a complete fucking primitive moron?

If they pinch some sweets from the corner shop, chop their hands off

They'll never do it again. Job dun.

Swearing is not that big a deal that you have to resort to physically assaulting a child.

Run in the road? Chop their legs off.

They won't do that again.

I mean, I can understand if it's something like brushing their teeth when they're resisting, or holding them down for an injection they don't want. That's very, very clearly for their own good and not yours. But because you don't want them to say a Norty Taboo Word? Shame on you.

Well, I'm very old and I had it done to me, as did several of my friends.
It is abusive and humiliating, and was in keeping with discipline in the 60s that also involved teachers smacking children's bottoms and legs with gym shoes and wife-beating as an acceptable choice.
I disagree that it's appropriate, and my mother now recognises is something that belongs well in the past.

I really don't understand the problem with taboo language. So, he swore. Leave him be, he'll stop doing it for attention. My children swear. They even say cunt occasionally. Admittedly, they are 28, 18 and 17, but I never made a deal out of it, and neither do they. It's all so childish to be so hung up about it.

I went to a primary school where the used washing your mouth with soap as a punishment for bad language. From reception up. They also used a wooden ruled on the backs of legs and, for special circumstances, a leather strap. God bless the Catholic Church. This was the 1980s.

Ergh Havant

I think at my primary school teachers used to say "Wash your mouth out with soap!" as a kind of verbal hangover from it actually being done, which seemed to work just fine and had the great advantage of not being a physical assault.

I had this done to me and it worked. I wouldn't do it to my own children obviously. Having said that I do think people aren't generally strict enough these days particularly around manners and cheekiness, but strictness can be achieved without physical force. I do not advocate the kind of physical chastisement my parents used to employ, which I do think nowadays was abuse. They of course would deny it now, but hitting a child with the buckle end of a belt, slapping them, knocking them down is abuse. I would hate for my children to be scared of me like I was of them.

I do think, however, perhaps controversially that the time for the OP to address this issue was when her son was 4/5/6/7/8/9 and that by the time he is 12 his lack of respect for her feelings and thoughts is going to be so deeply ingrained that all these sanctions are simply forcing him to behave by another means.