To ask the nursery if they say this.

[Dylaninthemovies1]

DS (3) has recently started shouting “oh my god” when he’s excited.

I’m sure this isn’t something I say: and my husband definitely doesn’t say it.

My mum is very religious and we live near a lot of religious people, so I don’t really want him using this phrase. Growing up my mum would have went mental if I used this phrase. She would have rather I swore instead of blaspheming (she doesn’t like swearing either)

DH was going to Ask the nursery if it’s something he could have possibly picked up there. But would we be “those” parents?

I don’t happen to think you are over reacting at all. I find the phrase “oh my God!” disrespectful and inconsiderate.

I live in London and my kids attend very diverse schools and they don’t say that phrase. They also come from extended families that often use the same phrase. I have never used it at home and have either ignored or corrected with an alternative if needed.
They do sometimes say other “bad words”, but nothing that would be offensive to a particular race, gender or religion etc.
You are totally reasonable to not want your kids to repeat it and to expect that staff don’t use it as a matter of course.
It expect that, at this young age, it’s prob best to just ignore it when your child says it and, as an older child, you can explain why.

If he comes home tomorrow saying 'Jesus Christ on a fucking bicycle' you could have a quite word in the ear of someone at nursary but TBH he's gonna hear all sorts from all different influences. How he uses the language he picks up is down to you.

Just to point out, it’s not just Christians I am worried about offending, it’s Muslims too. We live in a neighbourhood with a large Muslim population. Christians and Muslims (and Jews) believe in the same God.

I’m not religious and neither is my husband (both agnostic), but that doesn’t mean we think it’s ok to disrespect others religion

People get offended by “oh my God”?!

One day I dropped a dish as I was taking it out of the dishwasher. For about a week afterwards my toddler kept saying “Motherfucker”

I ignored it and it stopped thank goodness!

I don't think it's a British thing to be offended by this kind of phrase. I live in Canada and a 3 year old saying OMG would be frowned upon here. My DD said it on a couple of occasions at 3 and even my agnostic, anti-religion DH was not impressed. It's disrespectful to a lot of people, plus it's just not very nice to hear preschoolers using curse words surely!

My friend was called into nursery to discuss an incident with his 4 year old recently, some of the children were playing 'cars' and had pulled chairs into two blocks of 4, 2 front 2 back, friend's child read in the back of one of the 'cats'. A child in the front turned round and shouted 'will you all put your fucking seatbelts on!'. A couple of the children laughed, a nursery worker intervened to tell them not to use that word, cue 7 little boys running around the nursery shouting fuck/fucking.... Children pick things up easily, you just need to gently reframe it each time they say it, by making it a big thing you've made it a game to say it and watch for your reaction.

God doesn't exist, anyway, so you shouldn't worry.

Just to point out, it’s not just Christians I am worried about offending, it’s Muslims too. We live in a neighbourhood with a large Muslim population. Christians and Muslims (and Jews) believe in the same God

If anyone gets offended by this phrase then the problem lies with them, not your 3yo.

plus it's just not very nice to hear preschoolers using curse words surely

But it's not a curse word - so surely not!

Ridiculous. It's not as if people are saying "fuck your God"? The phrase isn't in any way offensive, I just don't see the problem so I'll continue to say it as it's fairly ingrained now. If my DC pick it up so be it, I won't be correcting them either as it really isn't a problem in normal parts of the world!