DS said 'shit'!

[Tippytoes]

My 6 yr old ds decided to tell his friends that he knew a bad word and it was 'shit' yesterday. Cue other kids telling the teacher what he had said.

Anyhow, I gets to school and obviously get called in and the teacher was really nasty about it and made my ds cry. Now he doesn't want to go to school!

I feel like she thinks we are the clampits or something, and I feel very ashamed!

I know that my ds was out of order, but feel she went over the top a bit, or is that just me being protective?

IMO making child cry is over the top.
I know swearing isn't great(see my other threads for examples of the problem I have had recently)

I think the teacher should expect to have to deal with this - 6yr old love to shock.
And he didn't by the sound of it use the word in context just told others he Knew the word was bad.(at least he knows that)

Over the top from teacher IMveryHO

There's a boy in Reception at dd's school who regularly calls the other children "fucking bastards", so a six year old saying "shit" isn't that bad in the scheme of things!

The teacher should definitely expect to have to deal with stuff like this, it is pretty normal for siz year olds to do this kind of thing. She handled it badly, IMO, and I would ask to have another word with either her or the head to let them know how this has affected your son.

Teachers can't seem to do anything right, can they? At least your child will think twice about swearing now, or would you rather the teacher hadn't said anything at all?

Yep, out of order. A teacher should be able to 'read' a DC and his family background sufficiently well to know whether the isolated use of single 'bad' words is a child's experimentation or whether it's in everyday use in that DC's home.

In the first circumstance, the DC should be privately told that the use of the word is unacceptable; IF other DCs start copying, the whole group needs to be told why we don't use that sort of language etc etc. In the second circumstance, the teacher MAY have to be firmer and may need to take a stronger position with the parents. Some actually don't realise that most people don't communicate like that! It's fair enough that the parent is told so they THEY have the opportunity to monitor their DC and jump on any further instances but making a DC cry really isn't on, esp at 6!

Incidentally, DS1, aged 2.5 went to quite an expensive Childcare Centre/ Day Nursery in a posh area of Australia. Within a month he was using the 'f' word with gay abandon! Now, he didn't hear THAT at home!

Though I wouldn't necessary take it to the head etc if you can avoid it! Is the teacher perhaps a bit inexperienced?

that was well ott imo......when i worked in a school child said a similar word and i told them it wsnt a very good word to use and we hd a think bout other words and came up with zut alor!!!! cue loads of 7 yr old shouting zut alor on the football pitch

Thank you for your responses. I didn't think what he had done was sooooo bad, although admit it wasn't the best thing he has ever done.

Miljee - the teacher is very experienced I gather has 20 odd years experience and is head of KS1.

Chipbutty - of course I would have wanted her to tell me and I understand why she has to. I realise other parents may complain if he has 'taught' their children the word, but just felt she went a bit over the top making him cry.

He also knows a few other choice words, although not the 'f' word, but other words for shit for example.

We had a very long chat about how it wrong etc. last night and he does understand so don't think he will be doing that again.

you could always try mishearing it and saying 'oh you mean ship/sheet/etc.' then go on to say along the lines of yes xxxx must have been talking about the ships he saw last holiday or very quickly change the direction of the conversation.
This has worked so far with my ds1 who is now 8 and my dd3 heard shup up and started saying it last week, I managed to change it to 'shop? you want to go to the shops?

Wait till they get to year six. DD1 told me a boy had been challenged to say the worse word he knew and he said cunt!
I said if he had been heard by a teacher he would have been in the biggest trouble ever. I would be surprised if 'shit' merited a major telling off however and i strongly suspect that in the DD's school, if the teacher hadn't heard it herself, she would have told the other children off for telling tales instead. Could be wrong though.

DS2 (6) asked me the other day if it was true that there was a really bad swear word beginning with 'c'. He then said 'cunt'. I was so shocked to hear it uttered in his lisping 6-year-old tones. I told him it was a word that many people found very unpleasant and he should never use it.