Six year old using bad language

[mortifiedd]

We’ve had the F word used four times this holiday. Have never heard it before. First time was upset and explained it was not a nice word but this has had no effect.

Some suggestions are to ignore it but it doesn’t seem to be being used for shock purposes but quite casually, which makes it so much worse. I’m really upset by it to be honest as it has happened too many times to make me think he’s just learned it.

Well the question is who has he been hanging about with to pick this word up?
If he's using it casually rather than as a shock tactic then its someone he has spent a lot of time with.
Think who that might be and if possible have a word about appropriate language around a young child.
You need to explain to him that some words are not good to use and it makes you sad to hear him say them.

@Gloriousgardener11 it will be at school which makes it harder as I can’t really police who he is friends with at school.

If he has never heard it before how does he know it?

I meant I have never heard it before prior to this holiday where it’s suddenly being dropped quite frequently.

We had this with DD. Her BF’s dad swore casually a lot and she picked it up from her BF. I completely failed to stop it in KS1 as otherwise her BF and family were lovely and DD was just too young to get why it was wrong. I did try, with explanations and saying about making others sad / cross but she could see for herself that this just wasn’t the case with her BF’s family. DD didn’t have a huge number of friends so I let it go. In KS2 she moved to another circle of friends and it just slowly stopped. They went to different secondary schools. DD does not swear casually now and she’s 20. Sorry but no useful advice, when kids at school swear it is very hard to get your kids not to copy when they are young. DD’s swearing did stop but not by anything I did.

Thanks @EndorsingPRActice , it’s so upsetting as you don’t expect your child to come out with it! He’s used it in context too which makes it so much worse somehow.

Where has he picked it up from, enough to use it so frequently in context?
Are you sure it's not at home?

So tempting to reply yes of course he hasn’t fucking heard it at home 😂

No, it 100% absolutely is not at home. It isn’t from me or dad and he only has one younger sister who has not been dropping it!

Ok no need to swear

It was a joke sorry x

DD2 first used the F word at school in Year 1 - she was having her hair pulled by a boy and had asked him to stop twice, then swore at him (to be fair she was doing karate from age 3 so I was just glad she went with a verbal response). I asked the teacher why DD2 hd to resort to 'emphatic language' in order to have her body autonomy requests listenened to. The boy's parents were held back at the next school kickout to discuss his behaviour, and DD2 and I got icecream while we discussed that swearing is best avoided, but she wasn't in trouble.

I explained that it's appropriate in a handful of situations, but if used all the time it loses its impact. TBF I had the Big Dictionary out when DD1 was 7yo and we looked up any of the words she wanted, looked at the etymology and discussed why we might use each one. I think I bored my kids out of using swear words.

Try not to overly react to it. Explain that it's not very clever to rely on those words and find alternatives. If other people around you react just shrug it off, or (without apology) say it's a phase you're working on.

I think there are 2 things to address here:

1. If you sure school is the only place - how has he heard it so many times in context to be able to repeat it in a school setting? I would be speaking to the school about it. Our school has zero tolerance for it even in the play ground.
2. Stopping your DS saying it - I came down like a ton of bricks on DS when he used it after being told not to. First time explain calmly why its not appreciate or correct language to use no matter the situation. Ideally no one would swear but some people think its appropriate, we are a family who does not therefore DS should not be using that language. Second time serious consequences were applied - loss of screen time, loss of play dates, loss of treats. I think he was about 7 maybe at the time. After the second (maybe he tried a third) time, he never repeated it in my ear shot again even in anger or frustration. I once overhead a conversation between some of the school kids (including DS) which they didn't know I could hear. Most other kids were swearing every other word, DS didn't do it once. So I know our approach has worked.

Swearing to terrible without DS football team now and we also have a teenage cousin who does it a lot around the kids. We knew early on we would have to address it quickly to make sure our DS (and DD when she's old enough) knew it wasn't appropriate. It worked.

Yes - my three year old announced that his 'bastard snowman was melting' - a well known child at playgroup used this 'adjective' every other word apparently and DS picked it up. We told him not to use that word as he didn't know the meaning of it and it didn't sound nice. It stopped eventually but we had to keep reminding him.

I hate swearing, my parents didn't swear and I don't swear - it makes me cringe when I hear young children swear.

my adult children don't swear in my company and insist that they don't elsewhere. My daughter used a word in exclamation and I asked her if she knew the meaning of the word and told her to look it up - she had no idea it was 'bad language'.

it's so common now that the meanings seem to have been lost. I can't stand to hear conversations smattered with casual, coarse obscenity.

It's always unpleasant to hear little ones say swear words that they've picked up (not that it's their own fault, of course); but even worse when they've learned from somewhere to just do it casually. I think it's abusive to bring them up in this environment, where they know words or concepts that they aren't yet old enough to properly understand and use in context.

Some people do just use swearing as punctuation - probably without even thinking - so I guess their own children just pick it up as normal from them; and then other children pick it up from them. I'm not at all of the school that maintains that any swearing is a marker of low intelligence; but I do very much believe this to be the case when it's every other word - especially when people instinctively use a swear word before they've even decided what they're going to say next.

If you don't use it in your family, then I think you can say to him 'our family doesn't use that word' without any rancour and just keep repeating that.

The difficulty is often when the adults in the family use the word freely but don't like it when their children repeat it.

Aah that's a bit more tricky, id be tempted to have a word with the school.
The school I once worked in had a zero tolerance for swearing and this was mentioned in its behaviour policy.
They are likely to know which child it is and act accordingly.

Thanks all. It’s happened again twice since I started this thread. Feeling a bit lost to be honest. He’s gone from not even knowing what fart means to regularly saying fucking this and that. It’s awful. It only started a week ago.

I’m a terrible swearer, I’m trying to stop it.

neither of kids swear though, if they did then they would be told straightaway that they’re not to repeat stuff like that.

if they carried on, I would issue consequences every time they swore.

i grew up with a mother who swore (although she doesn’t do it much now) yet I swear but my sister very rarely does.

Thing is @ItsStillWork if you tell them not to do it and issue consequences and neither of those things have any affect … then what?

I thought being told firmly not to do it would be enough. I honestly can’t believe how casually and confidently he’s dropping it around.

Tell him it's a boring silly word then ignore it, the more fuss you make the more they do it

I can see that would work if it was a seeking attention thing but it doesn’t seem to be. It’s totally casual and offhand. Oh, my fucking car broke was one such example.

That sounds like he's picked it up from an adult, speak to the school, it's still a silly nonsense word.

He hasn’t. I don’t swear, his teacher doesn’t swear.

I swear a lot and always have done. My 11yr old doesn’t (in front of me at least like most 11yr olds!). Hearing swearing doesn’t make a child swear. It doesn’t sound like you’ve actually explained the issue to him.

I was about that age, when my mother, literally put soap in my mouth, after I swore at my sister.
To this day, I don't swear a lot, and certainly don't use the F or C word.