Swearing

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It's great DS has friends both in and out school and is beng invited to birthday parties etc BUT a nasty side effect of being part of the "incrowd" at school has arisen.

He now swears sometimes like a navvy and it really threatens to bring down the red mist for me. I really cannot stand it and am at risk of doing something drastic and out of the 1880's discipline handbook if I can't get him to stop soon. It's a new problem that has only arisen over the last month or so.

I'm finding I have no issues with coping with DS generally and never had a problem staying calm when he used to wet himself have regular AS meltdowns etc, but swearing and foul language in a child of this age does my head in!

He'll swear at teachers/my friends as well as his peers (some of it is due to not understanding social hierarchy and I get that). Help me as it's gonna get him into REAL trouble if I can't get him to stop soon.

He's 7 and has strong Autistic traits, including pretty poor receptive language. 1,2,3 magic and all that jazz is a waste of time discipline wise.

Has anyone else faced this and what did you do? Anyone got any intelligent behavior management strategies I can try?

Do you know how the other children, in the 'in crowd', react when he does it in front of the teachers?

DS has started swearing too! He is 8 and has AS. It is embarrassing and very difficult to try and say it hasn't come from me (although I must admit I do swear - I don't in front of the kids!!).

He knows he shouldn't do it but says it expresses what he feels when he gets stressed rather than lashing out etc. He came out of school on the last day of term all worked up and dropped his stuff in the playground and said 'shit' loudly. He'd got stressed about not being able to carry everything.

We have talked about appropriate behaviour in different contexts and the impact words can have and how upsetting it can be to people to hear this. We have also talked about just staying put when we can't do something and asking for help.

It is slowly having an effect as well as rewarding him for NOT swearing!

I've also suggested making up something which he can use which is not a swear word but sounds like one - Star wars is full of weird words!

DD was watching daytime TV last week and there is a horrible advert for The only way is Essex where a chap says "sha.......uuuuup" DS picked up on it and every time he is unhappy with something and we are trying to talk to him we now get "sha......uuuuup" during and after every sentence we are trying to say. Its driving us bats at the moment.

He also used to say "idiot!" to anyone who annoyed him but I have managed to replace that with Jelly Tot lol. He stubbed his toe and I said oh you silly jelly tot before hugging him. Or if he was annoying his sister I have said he is just being a jelly tot. So he has picked it up and uses it instead. Not ideal but I can handle that more!

The "incrowd" think it's cool which negates the impact of teacher sanctions.which winds me up as I fully support teacher sanctions for cussing and the school know that.

Its a middle class school but inner city so you hear Mum's swear in the queue at tesco's - I notice the difference in the high st linguistic environment when we holiday in Wales! My brat can even cuss in Somalian after evesdropping on a local teen he admires (whose Mum was mortified!). Coff3pot - my son seems to imitate the WORST of everything I think sometimes so your story did make me chuckle.

Some of it is that he's making a huge leap at the moment in terms of general conversational vocab - his teacher & SALT have picked up on his increasingly wide range of descriptive vocab so that's fact not just my observation iykwim.

I swear on here but never out loud verbally, partly cos I have a younger sis who is SEN so was "trained" that way by my own parents as part of being a good role model for her. I've also spent periods of time workng with children iyswim. My extended family don't swear and my friends all know not round DS.

We learnt "homunculus" on Friday as a term for muttering under your breath when other boys annoy you. I'll continue trying the "alternate word" approach then if you feel it's an effective strategy. Just hope it works fast.

Perhaps the teacher needs to have a conversation with them all about swearing so that no one is singled out and they all know it is not to be encouraged?