Toddler swearing

[whysoangry87]

Hi all

I went to the park 5 days ago to meet my friend who I've not seen in ages and took my 3 year old DD with me.

My friend dropped some ice cream on herself & said a swear world quite loudly (f* sake)

My DD immediately copied and started shouting this .. I panicked thinking I won't pay any attention to it as she might forget about it... however my friend started laughing as if it was the funniest thing.
My DD loved that and kept saying it. I asked my friend to stop laughing as this encourages DD to continue. Anyway fast forward 5 days DD keeps saying it 😭😩 quite a few times a day
AIBU to be fuming with my friend?
Also any tips on how to stop DD saying it? Atm We pretend we don't understand what she says as any sort of attention she gets for bad behaviour encourages her to continue

Tia x

That is a pain and I would also be annoyed, it is just bad secondary parenting by her.

However at 3 your child should have the reasoning to understand not to say it if you explain that it isn't a word we say. With enough repetition of this and consistency in your disappointed response she should learn quite quickly not to say it

However I can understand the feeling of pollution from the external world and it feeling like a violation of your parenting. The remainder of raising a child will be a an ongoing bombardment of this so I wouldn't get too upset about it, these things are inevitable at some point

Just tell DD that "sake" is a naughty word, hopefully she'll just keep repeating that word and stop with the the f bomb. Well it worked with my DS when he was that age!

Sorry just re read your post. Unfortunately just pretending you don't understand is avoiding the issue - she knows it is a word, she heard an adult say it and will know there is something going on there

You need to tackle this head on in a patient and calm manner. She doesn't need to know the full context or background - just that some words are things we don't say - it's not her fault she heard it, so she shouldn't be punished or chastised for saying it, she needs help to understand it isn't appropriate - and this message to be calmly reinforced every time, without a big emotional response which could encourage her to repeat

Thanks for the advice. I'd loove to be able to explain to her and for her to actually listen.

She's only just turned 3 and might be one of the only ones who just does the opposite to what you're asking her.

We went through a year of her pushing other DC and have tried every method of explaining it's a bad thing to do and she'd carry on until one day I just ignored and didn't interfere and she stopped pushing.
But with this situation it seems that ignoring her new word isn't working at all. She's going to nursery too so I don't even want to imagine what the ladies there would think of us if they heard her swear 😩

However at 3 your child should have the reasoning to understand not to say it if you explain that it isn't a word we say.

The problem with that, though, is that it clearly is a word that at least one adult says. It's one thing telling kids that drinking alcohol or driving a car are things that only adults can do, because they can be dangerous; but I don't know how you would convince them of the same principle with words. Apart from anything else, a toddler isn't going to be in a position to be able to drive or drink - but copying a word/sound that somebody else says is easy for them.

That was really off of your friend not to rein it in with a child in earshot. I'm guessing it was unusual for her and that she's not one of these people who just swears all the time as punctuation, as you would have known what to expect then?

I don't know anything about her swearing habits I wouldn't say she's a person who swears at all times.

It's not even that. The fact that she laughed .. encouraged DD to carry on and think she's being funny or clever by saying it.

It's not even that. The fact that she laughed .. encouraged DD to carry on and think she's being funny or clever by saying it.

Yes, that is the worst part by far. Even if it had slipped out, she could have instantly apologised for saying a very bad word that 'we' shouldn't say.

My daughter said similar recently (unfortunately I don’t have a friend to blame 😳). A few times I said ‘we don’t say that, it’s not polite.’ Today she said it and I said she wouldn’t have an ice cream if she said it again (and I would have followed through). She stopped immediately 🤷‍♀️I agree at 3 they can understand and it’s a choice to continue saying it, so treat it like any other bad choice she makes and how you would parent that I think.

I think the majority of kids have done it tbh. It's something you can laugh about in the future
With mine I either completely ignored them when they said it or I'd say 'please don't say that, that's not a good word'. They soon stopped and haven't done it since.