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

oh also once we were driving along and a white van came flying round the corner on the wrong side of the road and i shouted oh f*ck! this was repeated gleefully several times by ds1 until his aunty had the foresight to say "a fox, a fox, mummy saw a fox"

Divastrop - I feel like I don't need to apologise for hijacking the thread for a quick BiF chat as it is your thread

ds2 is 7 (yr3) ds1 is 9 (yr5): so decisions about secondary schools to be made in just a few months' time. Is your ds in yr4 or 5? Apparently this year lots of people round here have been disappointed with the schools places allocations.

Some of you girls need to lay off poor Diva a bit. All kids swear sometimes, whether they've heard it at home or not. In most playgrounds, particularly when the older kids are off school, FUCK is all you hear. It's much the same down the your average High Street.

There's a bit too much judgement and not enough advice coming through, imo.

ALso worth remembering that, to small DCs, the word "fuck" has about the same resonance as "poo-poo head" and will be used in pretty much the same sort of way. I'd be more incllined to steer my DS away from using insulting language to be agressive towards individuals (whether he's calling them "you big toilet" or "You cunt"), but I really can't see the need to get over excited about a kid saying certain words just to provoke reactions.

i'm not bothered by swearing, but i don't think the playground's the place for it. i have sympathy for you as my twins [2yrs] were both chanting bugger on the way home from school the other day.
i think ignoring is a really good tactic at home, but in the playground you need to come on strong because other people's kids are listening and it's just humiliation for you. i think you have to ignore your other dc for 5 minutes whilst you do a low voiced shout and then you hold on to him untill you leave the premises with threats of withdrawing any treat /activity/toy that would work!! i know that's really strong, but you don't want it happening again.my ds1 has special needs,but at 4 started to understand that certain things would be taken away if he did not conform [i just repeated the process again and again alongside all the positive stuff] and now he is very lively, but generally does what is expected of him at school.
as for the future when he starts school - i think schools want to know - if they're prepared to expect to have to work really hard to occupy him then they've got a better chance. but the teacher and whole school is excellent with my ds1 and i know i'm lucky with that.
i really sympathise - i have had [and still have] some excrutiating experiences in public with my ds1 and it is so hard to hold your head high after them!

that won;t work thogh if the child is saying the word for lots of attention...... Really its like anything. First work out why he;s doing it, if it is only for attention then ignore completely and it will go (everyone else has to ignore it as well though, not just you). If its for something else the the respnse may have to be more complicated. But start by asking why he;s doing it then considering what your response has been......

i dont see how paretns say they cant sotp their kid swearing
tlel them off fgs!

Ignore it, they only use words like that to get a reaction. If there is no reaction it takes the fun out of it for them

Having a word with my children always put a stop to any swear words they might have picked up. My teens are told not to swear in front of the younger children and to be honest I've never heard them swear in front of me.

I am in the middle of the general opinion.

1. I think its wrong for kids to swear, and tell my kids that people swear because they cant think of anything clever to say

1. All kids try it on for size at some point, for whatever reason.

3.Absolutely tell them off, take away treats, send them to their room, WHATEVER it takes, until they stop doing it.

I have to admit to being sick and tired of hearing about little Johnny only doing it for attention, the poor mite. Little Johnny is making a mug of his mum and thats that.

Not all kids try it on. Most of mine haven't bothered.

Different kids different personalities require different approaches though, don't they? It's like most parenting things. And just because your children don't swear - and my eldest doesn't - doesn't mean your parenting is perfect; and vice versa.

I've never heard ds1 swear, though I know he knows some swear words. We talked to him about rude words when he was much younger, and the impression they create in an observer; and he's just never done it.

DS2 (8) - same parents, same approach, similar genes to ds1 - hasn't responded at all to that; and currently says all sorts of things that I find extremely offensive: gay boy, bastard, fuck, fucking, fuck-it, etc. We've tried different tactics: from withdrawing attention to full-on dire consequences for every misdemeanor; but we haven't cracked it ... yet!

I'm gearing up for a new offensive starting tomorrow: wish me luck

I wish they could see how ugly it is to hear those awful words coming out of their sweet little mouths.

Good luck Roisin!!!

I have similar age kids - same example too.

I found youngest a tough nut to crack, but stuck to my guns (soooo hard!), now if he does swear its certainly not in front of me - thats not to say he doesnt do it elsewhere (and those that think your children dont and never have - are you ALWAYS with them?)

i just dont get that if you said no dont swear to a kdi that they woudl persist
i really dont get it
i wonder if they think you dont mean it.

OK Porcupine, I'll send him down to you for a week at half term, just so that you can see what he's like

He is so different from ds1, and responds differently. DS1 is 2 years older, but still so easy to influence and manipulate.

i d sort him oyu KNOW it

lol at anyone who thinks that kids don't swear when parents aren't around

the main thing is that they pick it up from somewhere, and ALSO that they work out its a bad word. Then they will tend to say it quite a lot. My neighbours use such words frequently in the garden. I am actually pretty impressed at anyone who can monitor the language their kid is exposed to 24/7.

Whether they use the language to wind their parents up will partly depend on the kid, partly parents, IME.

I went to school in hampstead and my god we all knew all those words from about reception year on.

Yes its not nice coming from a young kid but really-it's hardly the end of the world. And FFS to anyone who uses it as a stick to beat other mums with. who gives a crap, really.

and no i don't swear in front of my kids and my kids don't swear either but...there for the grace of god, really

LOL! Is that an offer?
I'll put him on the train with a luggage label round his neck and you can pick him up from the station

Agree with www et all

I would not have been shocked by the child swearing in the playground particularly if the mother had said something to the child about it (as Divastrop did)

The fact that the child ignored it and tried it again is par for the course with some children and I would absolutely IN NO WAY judge a parent for this. Sadly I can see that I am in a minority.

i didnt realise this thread was still going on!

well,im happy to say there have been no more incidents since friday,and i told him on the way to school yesterday that if he swore in the playground he would have to stop playing and come and sit with me,as the other children dont want to hear swear words.

as for swearing at home,i'm just ignoring it.

roisin-my ds1 is in year 4 atm so i havent given any thought to senior school yet.
if you are sending your ds to porcupine then i may as well stick my ds2 on the train with him.but i will be expecting him to return speaking perfect RP english and acting like the perfect gentleman

divastrop that sounds reasonable for nursery, but I personally would also work on the home bit as well. I do think that at 3.9, he is old enough to understand that you don't find it acceptable.

DS has learnt swearwords at school. We all know who the boy in the class is who swears. On a lighter note, DS self-polices, and was having a right go about how Daddy had put a song with "swears" in it on Pop Junior. It took me ages to persuade him that a) DH had not compiled Pop Juniors, and b) that there really wasn't any swearing on Pop Junior. He still insisted that there was a swear on track 14 so I got DH to listen to it and it was "funky". So obviously he knows there is a similar word.