My 8 year old wrote FUCK in our house dust

[sobercuriouskind]

AIBU to worry about my 8 year old's language or how dusty and neglected our house is (we are week 13 into renovations and building work and I work full-time). No money left for a cleaner. Please send sympathy and how to address the FUCK issue

Eh?

Go NC.

His writing is quite neat, so that’s good

Or her’s, sorry

Hers- ffs

Are you sure it wasn't the builders?

Could you teach your child how to dust rather than write swear words into it?

Well on the bright side they have very tidy writing.

Obviously you show it to them later and await their entertaining ideas of who must have done this. Which you must share.

Hmmm I'd be more concerned that he is writing in capitals.

Since your 8yo has clearly noticed the amount of dust - give them a can of pledge and duster and set them to work

Don't make an issue of it.

I'd literally raise an eyebrow, point at it, mutter 'really ? remove that please. Now where's your shoes /coat /whatever'

Then snigger behind the door.

Honestly, that approach works for 99% of issues. It acknowledges their effort but doesn't fuel any drama.

It’s a stage of life - comes to us all. My elder dd was around the same age when she found out about ‘shit’ and ‘fuck’.

They find out from other children. They have a bit of fun using the word for a bit (in our case, writing the words out with sparklers on Guy Fawkes night). And then they get bored of them and something else comes along.

It’s not something to get worked up about - you can’t prevent your child from learning the words from other people. It’s just a phase.

Uh oh!

Regarding advice, the bigger a deal you make it seem, the more he’ll want to do it again.

I agree with your 8 year old. Hope it gets better once your renovations come to end (soon hopefully).

I would have done something like that at his age! I would have found it naughty and exciting in equal measures!

Give him a duster

when my kids did this ( and they all did - wrote a rude word somewhere in the house or on paper ) my approach was "oh, xxx i didnt know you knew the word fuck where have you learnt that from? do you know what it means and why its not a word that you should be using? " as for the dust, be like Quentin Crisp - leave it 7 years and it never gets any worse!

Give him a duster and remind him it’s not a word for children to use.

That looks like very adult handwriting for an 8 year old.

Thats the sort of shit id write to get my siblings in trouble as a kid haha..stupud parents always went for it too!!
Lighten up&give them a duster to wipe it off

Ach, it's just a word OP. Don't give it power by making a drama out of it.

Take a picture of take the piss out of her when she's older, then make her clean it up.

Add “...me, this dust is getting ridiculous”.

If this is real you don’t need a cleaner, just wipe the dust away yourself! And what do you need sympathy for? Just say “that’s not an appropriate word for an 8 year old, thank you. Wipe it off with this duster.”

Duster and arched eyebrow would do the trick.

Mine wrote "sex" on the coffee table (in sharpie!). Her writing is nowhere near as neat as your dc! Turned out her 11 year old friend called out the spelling and a few other choice sentences written on one of her younger sisters toys. I had "the talk" with her and her horror from that will probably discourage further graffiti. (Also she has decided that she will never go near a boy again so I'm not sure if that's a win or lose )