So what do you do when your 3 year old says the word "fucker"

[ConnorTraceptive]

I'm thinking totally ignore, which is easy to do at home but if he says it in public i'm going to die.

Not sure where he's got it from, I'm pretty sure we've never said it around him.

Oh yeah, swearing is funny anyway - especially creative swearing (says this longterm devotee of the Profanisaurus). It's fair enough to point out to children that some words upset some people so shouldn't be said outside the house - and it's also worth bearing in mind that small children may pick up words that either are racist or have racist connotations, and that's a whole new minefield to deal with.

Laugh a lot in a room on your own and offer no reaction to your 3 year old at all.

If it's not coming from you, I'd be mighty concerned about where it is coming from.

I have a friend who has had to use the "ignore" option - as her DD (who is 3) then says a word even more if it's commented on AT ALL.

my friend's little girl used to say bollocks (or "bollikth", as it sounded), and an old bid did the cat's bum thing, so i said "we're ignoring it - if you make a big deal, you're going to make it worse, so can you stop, please?"
lets folk know that you're aware of it and dealing with it, and makes them back off at the same time.

My ds said "fuckin water" the other day when playing at washing up. When I asked very calmly what did you say sweetie - he then repeated it and I realised he meant mucky water. phew!

SofiaAmes: I doubt there's any need to have a panic attack. If one's domestic life is so utterly pure of thought, word and deed that shutting one's hand in the car door allows nothing stronger than 'Oh SUGAR!' to pass the lips, then the DC will either use words they have made up in rhyming games (I remember mine getting a little confused over a counting/picture book that had three frogs and four ducks IYSWIM) or they will have overheard a choice phrase on the bus or in a shop or on the telly.
And it's only words. Kids don't distinguish between one kind of annoy-Mummy word and another ie they think that Pooface, Cunt and IHeartBNP are all semantically equivalent.

I'm sorry but "Oh dear Daddy, it's fucked!" and "I don't like fucking rice" made me PMSL!!

Seriously though, when I was potty training DS he sprayed me, I said 'bugger' he repeated and straight away I said 'don't say that!'. It took a week of ignoring it for him to stop saying it (whilst grinning at me slyly!!)

You must be confusing me with someone else....I'm not having a panic attack. The OP expressed concern and suggested that the phrase did not come from her household. Personally I would be concerned about someone who looked after my child and thought it was appropriate to swear in front of them often enough to pick it up. It's not the same thing as me swearing in front of my own child. If the OP wasn't concerned then she wouldn't have posted.

As it happens my children have found more sophisticated ways of annoying mummy...or maybe have twigged that swearing isn't a button pusher for me...while saying mummy mummy mummy mummy over and over and over and over again, is.

|would try not to bite my tongue off laughing.

DD has started wandering around muttering 'sake' whilst shaking her head recently (19 months) which i just try to ignore with tears streaming down my face.

I know it's bad, but it just cracks me up.

Sofia - how do you know that it was someone that looks after the child that has said it??

I've heard some very words coming out of the mouths of children at DS2's nursery.....

I don't know but i have a 23 mth old who swears like a trooper. Admittedly he did pick the words up from us but since he has started repeating absolutely everything we have stopped. We try ignoring but he keeps saying it, changing it to another word but then he associates the other word such as 'fire engine' with a swear word, so he will say fuckin hell when he hears a fire engine! Now we say it's a naughty word and you musn't say it, but he still does sometimes. It can be very embarrasing. I think maybe the best thing is to change the subject and try and talk about something else.

i have found the ignoring is the only thing that works with ds2.he doesnt swear in school so i dont mind too much,except that i have caught him a couple of times teaching dd2(2.7) some swear words.

before i got round to getting a stairgate,if dd3 escaped into the hall and up the stairs dd2 would shout 'mum!baby a bugger!'.

FAQ, the original poster said that it wasn't from their household. Where else would a 3 year old get it from? It's not like he's likely to have a massive autonomous social life.

When my dd started saying fing hll at 20 months, it was in a thick Northern accent and therefore clearly attributable to dh. He revised his language lickety split after that.

Sofia - from the children at nursery.

Like I said - I have heard some very words coming out of the mouths of children that DS2 goes to nursery with.

Whether it's from the children at nursery or the carer at nursery, I don't think it matters. Maybe it's time for a new nursery as it's clearly important and embarrassing to the OP.

Sofia - I was merely picking up on your comment

"Personally I would be concerned about someone who looked after my child and thought it was appropriate to swear in front of them often enough to pick it up."

pointing out that it may NOT be the person looking after the child that the swearing was picked up from.

I'm not concerned that it's a carer at the nursery swearing I was thinking more along the lines of a child.

I would imagine whatever nursery he went to there would always be an occassion to pick up bad language from another child. I would just rather it didn't then become my child passing on a swear word to another child at say a toddler group.

I know lots of mums would be understanding but can you imagine if your child shouted out "fucker" during song time

Sorry, just overreacting to madamez. I should know better by now and just ignore.

I do care what my children pick up from their peers and caretakers and made very careful thought out decisions about where to send them for childcare, nursery and school. I don't think that every place is the same. And, at least in my experience, it has little to do with cost, wealth, or social/cultural background. It's much more about the culture of the place and what is tolerated and taught. To me it's much more important than the prestige of the carer or school.

So far neither of my dc's has picked up any bad habits from outside the home (ok...so, they have got a few from inside the home...but I try to blame all of those on dh). While my family and friends' kids who are of similar age, but at different schools and in different afterschool care situations, have all had problems with both language and behavior.

If DS said this I would say "That is a grown up word and it isn't appropriate for kids" - he knows the same about Bugger, Crap and Shit which are my favourites.

After very carefully not reacting and telling him the above, I would then remove myself to my bedroom and laugh hysterically into a pillow.

For some reason it IS really funny when really little kids swear - I don't know why it just is.

Children beyond the age of about 2.5 can and do pick up a word from a single hearing (ie someone shouting 'Bollocks' as they miss their bus while you and your little cherub are walking by admiring the pretty flowers.) Then if Mummy has a paroxysm the child will have learnt that this is a word with interesting effects. Small children say and do things that embarrass their parents on a fairly regular basis: if you teach them the correct anatomical terms for everything they will shout 'PENIS' in front of the vicar, if they have overheard you saying something unkind about an acquaintance they will repeat it in front of the acquaintance, they will pee on other people's new carpets and point at strangers demanding loudly 'Is that a man or a lady? Why has that person got funny hair?' etc. If your child says 'fuck' in public, people who have or have had small DC will share your pain momentarily while thinking 'hey at least it's not my DC doing soething awful this time' and anyone who pitches a fit can be safely dismissed as a silly sod with a stick up his/her arse who needs to get a life.

Don't think it's reasonable to tell a child that swear words are for grown ups and not appropriate for children

If you don't want your children to swear you shouldn't swear yourself.
I don't believe most children pick up swear words from hearing them once in the street.
Mostly they will have heard it from someone they know, and often more than once,imo.

Not funny at all to hear children swearing, if that makes me a silly sod with a stick up my arse, so be it.

To the OP, I would ignore, or try the word substitution other posters have suggested.
I certainly wouldn't make it clear it is a bad word or tell them off, this may encourage them to use it for attention, imo.

I don't see why not. DS knows that drinking beer, driving a car, climbing a stepladder, changing a plug, medicine cabinet etc are grown-up things that are not for children - and it is actually the truth that most grown-ups swear although we expect children not to.

"You shouldn't swear yourself" - well, some hope for most of us enjoying life with toddlers (or children of any age really) not to let one out occasionally in a moment of exhaustion or frustration. And it is true that children will hear it all over - from older kids at nursery, from people in the street, from my friends (yes they know they shouldn't, but once it's out it's out and I'm not going to ban all my friends from our house for fear they might say "bollocks"). They are going to hear it, they are going to use it. Understanding that words have different uses and are appropriate in different situations is actually useful and important IMO - far better than just pretending they don't exist.

My friend thought she had an unusually sweet and well-behaved 8yo boy until she heard him swearing like a trooper with his mates - then when he saw her he blushed and said "you weren't meant to hear that mum!". If you think not swearing yourself will protect them from it, you're very wrong IMO.

I agree that some activities are obviously not for children. The examples you give are clearly not safe for them and it can be easily explained why this is the case.

I would be interested how you would explain that swearing is ok for you and not for them.

We do not pretend swearing does not exist.
Dd, now 7, has heard swear words since she started school, so yes, she has not been protected from them.
However, she knows it is wrong and does not use them herself.

Imo this is due to the fact that she has not heard them at home, from the people she respects, and therefore knows it is not ok.

So whilst I agree they are going to hear it, it is certainly not the case that they are going to say it.

When ds swore at 3, I told him it was a swear word and not a nice word, and that he shouldn't use it.
He did. Twice more. And then that was it.