Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

"PUFF-EDD!"; My 3 year olds made up swear word? How do I deal with it?

64 replies

Dragonbutter · 11/04/2008 13:02

He grunts PUFF-EDD at people in an aggressive way. I've asked him what it means, he just says his friend says it at nursery.
It bothers me even though i don't know what it means?
What do I do?

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

VanillaPumpkin · 11/04/2008 13:50

Oh I have said it the the dd's before myself ...........and then justified it by saying it showed how far they had pushed me .
I am a fabulous hypocrite but I do try hard.

JackieNo · 11/04/2008 13:51

DS has somehow picked up 'blummin' as a sort of swear word, but he uses it wrongly - 'Mummy, this coat is blummin', when he can't do up the zip. DD uses 'donkey', as in 'Oh donkey, I've forgotten to bring my water bottle home'. I don't say anything (though I used to get very worked up when DS was about 2.5 and kept saying 'For God's sake'. He seems to have stopped doing that now, thank goodness.

TheCoderator · 11/04/2008 13:52

oh mine used puiffy to mean fat oddly

VanillaPumpkin · 11/04/2008 13:53

DD1 says 'Bother, oh bother!'
I love that!!

JackieNo · 11/04/2008 14:00

And when they've been watching Bagpuss, DS occasionally says 'Fiddlesticks and flapdoodle', like Professor Yaffle .

LeonieD · 11/04/2008 14:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

taliac · 11/04/2008 14:57

DH got chucked up on by DD1 last week, and responded with an understandable "oh my god"

Course now its "ohmigod" from DD1 any time shes upset about something.

Luckily shes only 20m so while we understand what shes saying, to other people its not so obvious. Hopefully she'll forget it and move on soon.

kama · 11/04/2008 15:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Original poster

Dragonbutter · 11/04/2008 15:08

is that really something that children say? i've never heard of it.

OP posts:

Amapoleon · 11/04/2008 15:13

My dd used to use the word peronit, it could be a verb, noun or adjective. To this day I don't know where it came from or what it meant.

ReallyTired · 11/04/2008 18:38

ignore

BettySpaghetti · 11/04/2008 18:44

DS (3) has started saying "nackid" (eg. "Mummy this toy car is nackid") -we couldn't work out what he was saying or trying to say but then realised he was mispronouncing "knackered" (not sure where he'd heard it )

MoreSpamThanGlam · 11/04/2008 18:48

Definitely "Puff head" as in marujuana (sp?) smoking - like calling someone a Pothead.

Maybe yourdcs friend heard their parents saying it?[hmm}

MrsMattie · 11/04/2008 18:51

Probably just made up. My 3 yr old comes out with some strange insults for me sometimes. He called me a 'Poo Poo Head Stinky Bum Mum' this morning, and last night he called his dad 'Big Fat Croissant Head'. At least he's creative, eh?

MrsMacaroon · 11/04/2008 19:32

Make up a new one that you like or replace it with 'sugar' or summat innocuous and say it loads throughout the day whilst dropping things etc...he'll soon replace it with your swear word of choice. We did this with DD when she picked up on 'shit'...velly embarrassing.

Original poster

Dragonbutter · 11/04/2008 21:23

That's the thing. I'm pretty careless and he could easily pick up on many of my regular swear words. But no, he's got one of his own.
It's more of a puff-idd I think. So i'm not convinced about the something-head. And it's not used when he drops something etc. It's definitely when another child crosses him or gets in his way.
The thing is he's fairly articulate so he would pronounce it right if he wanted to. (today he said the word architect perfectly after hearing it once), and the other child is also very articulate.
But i couldn't vouch for them not being potheads

OP posts:

Original poster

Dragonbutter · 11/04/2008 21:25

I did wonder if it was a mispronunciation of 'perfect' because i could just imagine the other child saying 'oh that's just perfect' with disdain.
But he says no. its puffid/puffedd.

OP posts:

ouryve · 11/04/2008 23:32

DS1 has started saying "I'll pop your head off" when he's playing rough. I've no idea where he's got that from* or what the context is (he started saying "I'll split you" and making karate chop movements with his hands at the same time) but we calmly tell him that that's not a nice thing to say and move on.

(*Well, we do: probably from other boys at nursery. We don't even allow him to watch even slapstick violence because he doesn't have the ability to process it appropriately.)

serenity · 12/04/2008 01:14

DS2 has started channelling a '50s spinster aunt, and says 'oh my days' when something goes wrong. It sounds very odd from a 7 YO boy.

madamez · 12/04/2008 02:19

Those of you who won't even let your kids say 'shut up' when they are annoyed, don't be too surprised if they end up running amok with machine guns in 15 years time. Too much repression is Very Bad, and certainly a few silly made-up swear words never hurt anyone. real swear words spoken by kids who don't understand them certainly don't hurt anyone (apart from people who are so Easily Offended that it is only to be hoped that they quickly get excessively offended and drop dead).

MrsMattie · 12/04/2008 08:14

I don't mind the silly, made up 'poo poo bum' type insults. They're just part of normal development, imo. Have to disagree about 'shut up', though@madamez. If my son told me to 'shut up' he would be very very sorry indeed. I also don't necessarily believe that setting firm boundaries of behaviour in the home leads to 'repressed' children. I had a what some would call a very slack upbringing - we swore all the time and very vicious towards our mum at times. If she had been able to lay down the law to her 8 yr olds about not telling people to 'fuck off', perhaps we wouldn't have turned into 18 yr olds who told her to fuck off. Not blaming my lovely mummy (all this has been resolved long ago) but I will never have tmy children speaking to me with disrespect. No way.

carolyn1941 · 12/04/2008 08:38

I agree that it might be better to have a word with him about his 'tone' rather than what he actually said. Also agree that is prob a variant of something another child has picked up and he is trying to gauge your reaction! I think that it is not nice to tell people to shut up, and would not want children in my care to say it. Be quiet just as good! Was talking to some colleagues yesterday about not-quite swearwords like hell, bloody hell, shit, etc. They are used (in my opinion) far too freely eg on the news(!), eastenders, corrie etc. Have to say I still wouldn't swear or say any of these to my parents (and I'm 30!) but that's a good thing no?

Perhaps I'm repressed

Original poster

Dragonbutter · 23/06/2008 16:11

Just a little update on this one from a couple of months ago.
I cleverly managed to steer the word 'puffidd!' into 'bother!'
Bother is quite cute and he got some nice reactions to it. So he stopped.

Result.

OP posts:

willow · 25/06/2008 14:52

A friend told me how her 5 year old son proudly presented her with a bit of paper where he had written ' name of sister is a twat' and announced "I sounded it out, mum - in my brain!"

willow · 25/06/2008 17:42

Oh come on... cannot believe that that comment has killed this thread dead.

Flip

1 2 3