3 year old swearing what to do?

[breeze]

my DS has recently starting coming out with a few swear words (some i must confess come from me). i do not know what is best, do i tell him off? do i ignore him? help!!!
example the other day i dropped his dinner one he replied "its Fu**ing hell" isn't it mum. I was so shocked i laughed (wrong i know).

Our son nearly 3.5 started doing this a couple of months ago. Mostly I ignored it. However dh and I did say sometimes "that is a bad word". Best not to make an issue out of it. He seemed to get worse for awhile and then lost interest and rarely says swear words now. fortunately he only said it once or twice in public. No one even noticed although my mum did hear him but wasn't concerned. I have tried my best not to swear myself but sometimes they do pop out unbidden. Best of luck.

i told my kids it was wrong and unacceptable in fact i tell them now that they are older that i may swear if i like as i am old enough but they may not. i have done the soap and mouth thing and i think it works a treat. for other ruthless mothers of older children ialso find making them look it up in the dictionary and to write a story including the word works wll too - especially if they hate school work. this would depend on the word and the childs age ofcourse!

although not what you could use breeze you know your child best i know had i ignored it it would have continued, but a telling off when they were little worked well but for other people as their children are different as are diferent methods

We used to tell DS1 quite strongly that if he was going to say such words he should say them properly. F became flipping B**r became bother etc. It doesn't happen very often thankfully but we found telling him not to say it just made it worse and ignoring it didn't seem to work either. Now I think about it, it's not happened for ages.

I've been through this with my 6 1/2 year old. When he started school he used to shout B at the time sometimes all the way to school. It was awful so embarrassing and difficult to ignore.
If you can manage to ignore it try to, if you can reason with him explain that it is a bad word (no reasoning with my son not even now).
Its really awkward when they learn it from home, I do swear a bit but don't use the f or b word, whereas my dh has a very colourful vocabulary. In fact yesterday I said to him sarcastically, "Are there any words which you haven't taught the children yet, maybe you should try and teach them before they go back to school.!!!!
Good luck, stay calm it will pass.

Breeze, my 5yo ds knows some choice words too. I'm really glad that I managed to react calmly from the beginning since I reacted badly once to being called an idiot, he realised the word had power and now uses it if he wants to make us cross. Since I haven't ever got really cross about swearing he knows it has no power. I explained that rude words are not nice and that people will think he has a limited vocabulary if he uses them. He is the one who tells me off now "shouldn't say bloody mummy, it's rude and people will think you don't know any other words" Quite right I say, sorry. So I'd advise telling him these words are unacceptable but keep it all low key and not too exciting so he doesn't think he can push your buttons with them. Worked for me anyway, good luck!

Hmmm... think I've failed on this one. Only experienced it a couple of months ago, and our bad words are/were 'idiot' and 'poo poo', but I guess I over-reacted, and they use them all the time now. Fortunately they (3.5 and 5.5) haven't come across anything worse!

Oh well, I must just be a bad mother... my 2.75 ds was on Barney the other day outside Asda ( yes I know many don't approve, but he had been a good boy), and was driving away saying I'm pretending to be Daddy. Great.... until he came out with F*ing hell mate, get out my road! He did it with feeling, with hand actions so I just chose to ignore it.

I tell him if he comes out with it that it is wrong, but I work on the assumption that he will tire of it, and we will learn not to say it?!

sorry deegward but i couldn't help laughing, why is it the mums have to put up with the swear words in public when most of the time it is someone else that teaches them swear words. My son's latest word is tw*t (definately not me)

Just wait till they get to school KMG..that will soon change. Whats wrong with poopoo thats what I teach my children as babies for when they need the toilet..lol

So glad it's not just my kids! My four year old has an extensive vocab of words, some from me I admit, but mostly from his two older brothers (12 and9). He also watches programmes with them like the Simpsons and thinks yelling, Yo Butt Brain at me in Sainsburys is a great way to attract attention, and yes, he's right! I do try and ignore it and the all out free-for-all fights that are constant in my house, mostly at tea times when all the kids are getting tired and ratty. That's another thread, does anyone else's kids really fight, not just tipping and tapping, but all out war. Advice would be great! If I stopped cooking/working etc every time someone shouted MUM!!!! at me I'd spend all my time stopping fights and listening to who did what first! Putting them in bedrooms doesn't work, as mostly they just come out or sulk and then spend the time running between each others bedrooms whispering rude things and antagonistic messages to each other, then running like hell when the offended person slams out, shouting That's it, I'll kill you and then I'll tell Mum! I know it's just not me, but I think my dh is getting fed up of me waving an empty bottle of wine at him when he gets home and saying YOUR KIDS HAVE BEEN HORRIBLE AGAIN AND WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO HAVE 4 OF THE LITTLE WOTSITS?!!