ds2 was swearing in the nursery playground and the other mums were looking at me in disgust

[divastrop]

he is 3.9 and has always been very 'lively' and laddish,but today he was running around and 3 times shouted 'f**k it' and 'bugger'

i told him off,obviously,but the other parents in the playground were looking at me horrified,as though they expected me to do more,but i dont know what they expected me to do?

i dont know how to deal with this.dp and i have been watching what we say at home,but ds2 already knows the words now.he doesnt listen to me when i tell him off anyway.he just grins cheekily when anybody tells him off(even the headmistress of the junior school,who scares me,told him not to climb on the stairs when we were waiting for ds and dd1,and he just ignored her).

i have recently found out he has a hearing problem,i dont know to what degree exactly,but im waiting for an appointment for him at the hospital(i was told he most likely has 'glue ear').he has some problems with his speech because of this also.

i dont know how to deal with this,as my loder 2 children,however they may have behaved at home,have always behaved brilliantly at school.they work hard and have never been in trouble.

ds2 starts infant school in september,and i can forsee frequent visits to the headmistress if this carries on

If achild had sworn in front of DS1, I too would have been horrified. They wuold have been crossed off my play dates list. However, DS2 has picked up some shocking vocab, and the crosser I get, the funnier he thinks it is. Of course kids are going to pick up swear words when they hear them. They're not spoken like other words. DH bangs his thumb with a hammer and says "f*k", without realising DC is standing behind him. It must sound like a great word to a kid!

Big fat hairy deal!

I would rather my child learned swear words than learned that socially excluding small children who sometimes behave inappropriately is ok. That's my last word on the subject.

Crossing them off a playdate list, how spiteful.

glue ear is terrible , you don't know if he can hear you when you are talking to him and it is deaf some days and better on other days, the deafness from glue ear can cause behavioural issues too as people think the children are stroppy and ignoring when in fact they can't hear or are frustrated.

Lynette you cross children off playlists?. Do you disinfect yourself as well in case you happened to touch one of these swearing children. I don't know, some mothers have really, really unkind attitudes.

Anna, French teenagers must be much more compliant than English ones. I don't think a normal UK teenager could stop swearing in the course of normal game play.

But other people saying they have threatened XYZ - that is just so different from my views. We have freedom of speech in the UK and although my older children don't swear that much in normal conversation with me I don't think I actually believe threats and censorship are morally correct once children are fairly old. The ability to tolerate a child who is actually different from you rather than the pressing of them into a mould such that they emerge a carbon copy of you is an interesting issue.

Boy there's a lot of pious, sanctimonious little people out there Divastrop, including the ones in your playground.

There are far, far more important things to worry about with children than either other people's opinions or the use of 'rude words'.

When there is something wrong and you ask people for advice you have to be honest and that honesty makes you vulnerable. You cannot 'hide' the unpleasant side of the problem (in this case divastrops little boy acting out) otherwise you cannot hope to get help and advice to get over the parenting hiccup you are embroiled in.

So Diva has been brave and been honest and lots of people are turning that honesty back on her. We ALL have times when our children act differently to how we would want them. So they might not swear but they will all have done something at sometime that we will look at them and think 'where did that come from'?

I would like to think that if someone has been strong enough to post something that shows them (or their family) in a less than perfect way in order to garner some support or helpful advice we would all be able to keep to the old adage of 'if you have nothing nice to say then say nothing.'

Parenting at the best of times is not easy and I beggar anyone even without five children, (and three under five, which is Diva's position) to not have an occassional day when it is all too much and you look outwards to the wider parenting community for a little shoulder to cry on.

I'm really suprised at that attitute Lynette. My DS (7) has always been a 'model child', almost embarassingly so. Would certainly never swear and rarely misbehaves.

He often has playdates with a boy who is the worst behaved in the class and probably the entire school. He has had a difficult home life and has a lot of problems. He's a likeable boy though with great energy and creativity. I think its great that the two of them spend time together as they are so different and in their own way, can have a positive influence on each other. As an adult I have made many friendships which on the surface look unlikely but IMO often turn out to be the most rewarding and long lasting. To my word, judging other peopkle like that is far worse than aswearing in the first place.

People have playdate lists? How f*cking tragic is that? Oops, sorry, forgot this was a thread about not swearing! Guess my son's going to be crossed off sooooo many playdate lists. Still, every cloud eh...

I try to discourage all this playing with people stuff all the time ( I could never bear to use the word play date - it sounds American).

There is a huge difference between teenagers and toddlers and children in between. Toddlers and under 5s don't really understand the concept of swearing so they just think it's great they've found a way to shock so the best thing is not to react at all and just ignore it. Teenagers - the extent to which you control their language is fascinating having got 3 through that stage. I particularly hated the adding the word "like" into sentences phase they went through and that inflection of sentences at the end like Australians did didn't last long. At university their speech seem to have reverted to how it was when they were not teenagers... better speech - I suppose they move into an adult world and don't have to adopt the language of teenagers etc.

Those in the middle say my 8 year olds they need to know certain words are not regarded as appropriate by many people and I think if you don't swear at home (I don't) then they use fewer swear words anyway. I would correct speech of children that way the same positive way I try with other things like I never let "on the weekend" or "for free" pass the lips of a child of mine without reproach....

Haha Fio..
'Freddie, would you like to come to tea?'
'F*$& off!'

Yes..it's worth a try!

i dont know what a 'playdate' is.i live in England.

whoever said something about middle class+english,thank you.if i lived in a middle class area then i would expect people to be shocked by foul language,but this is a northern industrial,working-class town,and if these mothers are worried about their children hearing swear words at nursery,then heaven help them when their children start at the local junior school,as i have heard the year 6 children coming out with things(swearing and very sexually explicit language)even i find shocking.

i try not to swear in front of the children,but sometimes when ds2 has woken me at 5am when ive only just got the baby back off to sleep,i do mutter bad words under my breath as i trudge downstairs half asleep.
and he's probably heard them from dp when he's playing computer games as well

however,i used to swear all the time when my older 2 were this age(i had no idea how to be a mother and have had to learn on the job),and they have never sworn in school or in public,and have only sworn the odd time at home(mainly since they started junior school).but i cant think what im doing differently with ds2.(apart from still treating him like a baby according to dp)

All I can say ia thank goodness some more reasonable, sensible posters have come onto this thread. Those of you who posted the nasty, judgemental comments come across as very unpleasant, intolerant people. I wonder how you will react when your children become teeagers-because believe me, they most certainly will swear, no matter how you have brought them up!

what shocks me is when people actually teach their dc to swear! i was walking with my bestfriends mum and she saw a girl she knew who had a dd maybe around 2. they started talking and then the girls turns to her dd and asks her 'honey, what is daddy?' her dd replied 'daddy is a cunt' that is what i cal bad parenting!

I'm really laughing now. Just for the record, I don't have a play date list, and never have done. My point is that 5 years ago, I would have been shocked if 3 year old child said "f*k off you shit arse" on the play ground. Just like other parents are when my DS says it now. I can tell by the shock on an ex- neighbours face, accompanied by the sharp inhale of breath, when 8 year old DS1 said "for fks sake", that he won't be invited back to play with her DC's any time soon. DS's friend from school comes around to play sometimes, drops all his t's and h's and swears like a trooper. He's taught my DS's lots of colourful new vocab, hence DS2's language. Anyone want to bring your DC's round to play with him? If they happen to annoy him, he'll tell them they're a "stupid f**ker."

Wow, am genuinely amazed that so many people have so many feelings about swearing

I'd have been shocked, as the OP no doubt was, to hear her ds using those words - but as he was told off, I wouldn't have judged her for a minute. There is a fair bit of luck involved in what words a child overhears, doesn't have to be at home or in nursery. I think how its responded to is FAR more important than the fact that it happened in the first place.

And I wouldn't have been scared of my dd hearing him, either: I might not have been thrilled, but fgs she's bound to hear swear words, and other things, eventually and when she says them, or asks about them, I'll deal with it.

Fio, great feedback

I used the Replacement trick. If they (and by they I only mean DS1 actually. DS2 hasn't really picked up any swearwords) came out with a swearword I'd give him an alternative and say "If you must use that word say it properly. Fudge. Can you say fudge?" Generally distracted him from it. Then, when he was older, we'd explain how they were Grown Up words and he shouldn't use them, which he was fine about. (Until he used the word f*ing in his Y2 written work and the teacher had to keep a straight face whilst she told me about it.)

I've only skimmed (sorry), and am probably repeating something someone else has said but I think the speech thing affects your behaviour around your children. My ds was a sponge - I was so careful what I said around him because he would parrot it right back. Dd on the other hand barely made a sound until well beyond two, and had no words until about 2.6, and because I didn't get that feedback from her, I was much less careful about what I said. And although I don't do the really earthy stuff, 'bollocks' and 'bugger' definitely came to her attention, and when she started talking we had some work to do...

I use elaborate non-sweary expletives now - much more amusing for the child, but embarassing for me when I come out with them in more adult company .

I remember my Dad inventing swearwords for my little brother when he was about 4, and trying to figure out what his big sisters were saying. He sometimes had to think too fast, and came up with very silly ones that began with the same letters/sounds as real ones...

One of the 'swear words' ended up being the name of a colleague of his, and to this day we talk about the Swear Word coming to dinner...