Cursing - is it really that bad?

[LeapYearDad]

My daughter is bilingual, English & German, and she is sometimes bemused by the weight attached to cuss words in English. My nieces and nephews are growing up in the UK and obviously children cursing is completely taboo.
I allow my daughter to curse in English, mostly because it's hilarious. If we were bringing her up in an English-speaking country, I would allow her to use one curse word with impunity. I would choose the curse word. I think this would nip any potential prudishness in the bud and make her a more open and rounded adult.

I guess it depends on how old your dd is.

I personally dont like swearing. I dont want my kids to swear either. I dont see why it is necessairy to use words that could offend people.
I dont see how letting her swear will make her any more rounded than the next child tbh.
I would just rather my kids expressed themselves a little better than using swear words to do so.

I remember learning almost my entire curse word repetoire at the age of 5, watching my Dad trying to fix a fence. I knew the words early but rarely used them, probably because my Dad wasn't that fussed and therefore there was no shock value attached. Now though I swear like a trooper.

Same as. Driving with my Dad once, truck in front threw up a giant rock that smashed the windscreen completely. Learned my repertoire right there, in those next 90 seconds. And got reamed by my Mum when I re-used them all later that day when we got back home.

Kids swearing is awful and quite frankly it disgusts me to hear 7 yr olds saying f and c. I swear but not in front of my kids and I won't let them swear its unneccessary

I use swear words, even in front of my 3yo and my 5yo. Both understand that swearing offends some people so under no circumstances are they allowed to use the words outside our home, but they are allowed to use the more mild words occasionally at home. I think it's a balanced approach. I know a mum at school who acts like swearing is as bad as murder. Guess whose child said the F word - to a teacher. Hers. Mine understand that there's a time and a place. Just to add that my children are also not allowed to swear if there are visitors in our house and they know that.

I agree with Garden Plants, both me and my husband swear infront of the kids, not deliberatly and not abusively and when we first moved to London, I remember being highly amused at my daughter then 4, we were sitting in a major traffic jam and she looked at us and said "what's with this s**t?", to which my new husband, her new stepdad who has a traditional English stiff upper lip creased up, people need to relaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx!
P.S My kids very rarely swear because we never made a big thing of it in the past

That's the trick, I reckon. I think kids swear because of the reaction they get, a lot of the time. There's also a difference between swearing abusively, ie calling someone a c--t etc and swearing as emphasis to a situation. To be honest, I do think you can be abusive without swearing and you can swear without being abusive.

I totally agree with all the posters. My DD has been at school since September and about a month ago used her magnetic letters to spell out 'fuck' on the fridge. She was really proud of herself, and I assume that they'd been learning 'ck' at school so for her after learning luck, duck, truck, this was just natural progression!
Trying not to scold her for what she thought was good we just explained not to do the same at school. Funniest thing was she tried blaming my mum for teaching her it, my mum who I have never heard say anything worse than flipping!!
My 2 know they are allowed to say flipping and plonker and although most of the adults around them swear freely, they don't unless they want attention,

Call me old school, but I hate to hear children swearing.

We never swear in front of 7 year old DD and so far I've never heard her use a swear word. Children swearing is crass in my opinion. I hope she'll be able to articulate herself in years to come without the need to use swear words.

In France we have a special swear word just for kids to be silly and let off steam: "caca boudin" - poo sausage.

It's allowed in moderation, grown up ones must certainly are not.

I am now going to adopt the use of the words poo sausage...i think my life may become enriched because of them.
As to being able to articulate without the use of swearing, I can articulate myself just fine in 4 language, avec curse words or otherwise! Of course everyone is entitled to their own stance on swearing and how the words make them feel but I dont think its anything to do with articulation or similar.