To think toddler swearing isn’t a big deal

[Pottymouthw]

My daughter recently said fuck off recently. I was videoing her and she said it in context, she is two. I tried not to react as didn’t want to make it into a bigger deal. I don’t swear around my kids, or certainly not at them.

I told her dad, sent him the video because the timing was perfect and kind of funny ( I do NOT think children swearing is okay or cute but it happens).
a whole argue started as he said he’s not impressed, I need to find out where she got it from, we recently spent time with family over Christmas. My family also don’t swear around elders or children culturally it’s not the done thing.

Her dad said he feels like someone must be talking to her like that, maybe in my family we think it’s okay but no one is his family ever swore as a child. He said I need to figure out how she learnt this, could be from literally anywhere?! I don’t think hunk it’s a big deal, she doesn’t know what the words mean and I wouldn’t encourage it? Am I really being unreasonable to think it’s not a big deal?

But then I also am at a loss to understand why people video their kids fighting/misbehaving generally and put it on social media/send it to friends. It’s not awful or horrific, kids are sometimes naughty etc, but it’s also not a cute trick to video and share. It’s poor behaviour that needs dealing with in the moment, not videoing.

👍

Apparently we are lying though and we must have said "fuck off" in front of our toddlers🙄

Could she have heard it on TV? I think he's overreacting. It isn't nice but not the end of the world either.

^This^

My nephew at the same age was having a bath, and dropped his toy with a big splash and said "oh *uck". My brother and SIL decided he was referring to the rubber d...uck 😂

Kids pick up words and test them out. If they know it winds you up they know to use them! No reaction other than a very calm "we don't say that".

That would honestly surprise me to hear from a 2 year old. Not great.

This is going to be a massive thread, you can already tell. A classic moral indignation pile-on.

See I would put Jesus Christ in the same bracket as F off it's just words we as a society chose not to use.

DS is 9 and thinks swearing is funny we just say we don't use those words and leave it at that. He's just using them to express something not as an insult.

If she says it again I would just ask her where she heard it as it's a bad word. If she doesn't repeat it she might have just parroted it at the right time.

I have never said 'fuck' or 'shit' in front of DD, no. My husband doesn't swear at all (not being goady he genuinely doesn't swear, which I found v odd as a Glaswegian when we got together ) so he certainly hasn't.

I have exclaimed 'Jesus' quite a lot which she has parroted and also she said she didn't want 'these crap fish fingers', so she's picked up 'crap' from one of us too  but I don't think it's that hard to not say the hard swears in front of kids tbh (just like I wouldn't say them in front of my wee granny either!).

It's definitely a big deal! A 2 year old swearing is pretty gross.

I started this off by saying I don’t think it’s cute funny or acceptable. I’ve been accused of neglecting her and my family negatively influencing her.. I feel her dad should know I’m not that type of parent. It’s hardly neglect!
Again it’s not encouraged, we don’t talk like that to children or any elder people in our family

Well that same poster insists that ‘they all do it.’ But I’ve worked with toddlers for 10 years and can count on one hand the number of under 5s I’ve heard say ‘fuck off.’ It’s generally the children who you are aware will have heard it before at home.

@Grumpybutfunny That's interesting because to me, 'fuck off' is something unpleasant you direct at someone else whereas JC is just an exclamation that isn't designed to hurt or target anyone.

Your OP literally says

I told her dad, sent him the video because the timing was perfect and kind of funny

@Kanaloa totally agree with you.

It was funny, I didn’t laugh but the timing was funny. I’m not encouraging her to talk this way, I don’t enjoy it, I don’t think it’s hilarious and ask her to repeat it. I’m saying children swearing isn’t funny or cute. I just can’t see the whole big uproar she said something from somewhere, she hasn’t said it again. I certainly wouldn’t think it’s neglect or being around unsavoury people because she’s not

That was me in case anyone was wondering 🙌

I don't think it's funny at all

DS started saying "fucks sake" around 2.5. I was mortified because it is something I say and I thought I'd been so very careful not to use bad language around him. It was only when he started adding "I'll never get out if this house" that I realised it had come from EXH struggling to get him ready for nursery in the morning. I changed my work pattern so I did all the drop offs. It stopped.

So why start the thread?

You didn't have to send the video to her dad or start the thread if you were so content with it being absolutely nothing and so inconsequential.

Something made you start the thread though and that's probably the fact you know it's definitely not something she's just parroted and that it's not something all children do.

If it isn’t funny or cute why share it around? Of course it’s just one of those things, she’s heard it and repeated it, but do you generally share unpleasant things like that? Like if she had an explosive poo, would you think ‘yuck, this isn’t funny or cute… better film it to send it to people?’

Some parts of parenting don’t require sharing. Especially the parts that aren’t funny or cute. Her dad probably thinks you sharing it means you aren’t dealing with it properly and are encouraging it as it’s ‘funny.’

That was 2 year old DS's favourite word for a week. He heard a group of teenagers in the supermarket shouting and swearing at each other and picked it up there.

It's possible that something similar happened to your DC. As adults, we are so used to it that you may not have even noticed.

We totally ignored it and it dropped from his vocabulary very quickly.

Yeah. The one who thinks it’s unbelievable that any family doesn’t say fuck off in front of toddlers, and that every single toddler does apparently say it.

I didn’t share it around I sent it to her dad to ask if she said what I thought she said… I didn’t post it on social media or send to any other family. And I posted to see people’s thoughts because myself and her dad have had completely different reactions

What matters isn't where she got it from, but your reaction. I totally disagree that the best thing to do was ignore it. Is that what you plan to do about any inappropriate behaviour? If not, why do it about this? You might not think it's a big deal (though I suspect you're saying that defensively, out of embarrassment), but do you really want to teach her that it's not a big deal to tell people to fuck off?