Now come on we all do it, swear I mean, but do we do it in front of our little ones?
Most of us would like to say a resounding “No!” but if we are being 100% honest, we do, even if we don’t mean to for the most part.
I assure you there will be a moment in your life where you have accidently let one slip.
Picture it- you are in your car at a junction and someone cuts in front of you; Can you hold it in?
You stub your toe on something; do you take the lords name in vein?
You accidently smash your favourite cup; can you hold it in?
The truth is no! and in my opinion that’s ok.
Children nowadays are hearing swear words from so many different places that they are bound to come home with a new word. The other day I had a very excitable 8-year-old come running out from school saying, “so and so dropped the F bomb today” and my response, “oh that’s interesting can you tell me why?”
You see over my years of working in schools I have learnt that children playing will mimic behaviour that they have seen and language they’ve heard but it doesn’t always mean that that play is appropriate. It becomes a teaching moment.
Yes, you heard those words, but how was that person feeling at the time? Was it appropriate to say? Should they have maybe thought of something else to say? Who have you heard that word from? Do you know that, that word is not a good word?
Instead, we have very quickly learnt to openly talk about swearing. That doesn’t mean every time I get annoyed I say every swear word that there is under the sun, it just means that if either of us do swear we use our words to explain how we were feeling at the time. We talk and teach our child that sometimes we can’t control what comes out of our mouths, but we can always apologise and rephrase what we mean.
Yes, the child dropped the F-bomb but that was because they had accidently cracked their water bottle and ruined their packed lunch and reading book and record.
Was it ok to use that word? At that time maybe it was.
Could we have used a different way to express our anger/frustration? Absolutely.
Does the child know that that is not appropriate to say in school? They probably will do now.
Will their parents have a stern word with them when they get home? Probably.
Should they be punished? No, a conversation should take place.
You see much like when we teach our children not to touch the candles on their birthday cake so they don’t burn themselves, if we don’t teach them about swearing, what the word means and how it isn’t always appropriate then they will use them.
I am not perfect, I swear (often with my friends a little too much) so I’m not expecting my child to be perfect either.
If you're like me and try your best to limit your swearing to just a few choice phrases, as to not broaden your small ones vocabulary too much, then why not have a look at alternative words you can use? They maybe helpful... or then again your child may think you've gone insane when you start coming out with words like "Snickerdoodle" and "Gee willickers"
Gee Willickers is my new favourite cuss word! Swearing is a big bugbear for me as it is so much more prevalent these days than when we were kids - it's in popular music and some kids just have it as part of their everyday vocabulary. And then there's the grey area words - I still consider 'arse' and 'bloody' to be swear words but the first especially is widely used even in children's books!