I had this conversation with Havoc the other day
Havoc: “This boy calls me Dork all the time.”
Me: “Well, that is rude of him. Name calling isn’t nice.”
Havoc dithers a bit about this. He doesn’t like being called Dork but then he says. “It’s ok I guess. It’s a game we play.”
M: “Doesn’t sound like a very nice game to me & it sounds like you don’t like it much.”
H: “No, it was his idea. He called me Dork & then said I could call him a name too.”
M: “Oh really?”
H: “yeah, he calls me Dork and I call him Pussy”
pause for a couple of seconds while I CALMLY digest that.
M: “what do you call him?”
H: “Pussy”
M: “How did you come up with that name?”
H: “This older boy said it would be a good one”
Do you know where these boys were when this game was being played? Vacation bible school. I have no idea who the older boy was, another student or a helper. I have no idea where any authority figure was either.
I swear fairly often. I am 100% responsible for any ‘hell’s, ‘damn’s or ‘shit’s the kids drop in conversation (which so far have been few and far between. They seem to get that just like there are grown up beverages, there are grown up words too). Lately he has been saying kickass and badass, which, again, my fault. I let him watch some Star Wars parodies on You Tube that had inappropriate language. Though he does only use those words when he is reciting dialogue. He has yet to thank me for the kickass dinner or announce he is too badass to play CandyLand. It is context specific swearing.
I don’t expend a lot of energy protecting their virgin ears from language. I’d rather they were not shocked by hearing someone say asshole but just shrug it off as someone behaving badly. It isn’t thing big forbidden thing people do, but just words most people would rather not hear. But I do try to limit the exposure. I was expecting this to happen. But I assumed it would be on the school bus, where he rides with 30+ other kids ages 5 –17 & only a distracted driver overseeing things. I did not expect him to come back from bible school with an ‘enriched vocabulary’.
I’m downplaying it for now as I have with other words. He hadn’t been calling anyone else pussy so I suppose it’s not too bad. I almost want to start a list of Words You Can’t Say so he’ll know ahead of time, since he has been so obviously clueless. But then he’ll have a list of inappropriate words & will no doubt share it with others.
Then I’ll be that mom who gave her kid a list of swear words.
I can only imagine the hits I will be getting due to language in this post
5 comments:
You are doing the right thing. I do swear a lot as well and I tell my kids who are 15, 19 that they can swear once they leave my house and that me and their father are the only ones to swear. I also told them If I ever hear a couple of them they would be punished so severely that they'd want to be adopted: NO tv,computer,basically anything that plugs into a wall. The main word would be the "P" word. I hate that one above all else. But my kids are good natured and understand. As you said, you can't protect them from everything, you just have to teach them what's acceptable. You are doing a great job and I just love love your blog.
Now THAT is colorful language.
Oh my, I guess they hear stuff everywhere.
I fessed up to being a potty mouth a long time ago and my kids know that I can say whatever words I want because I'm an adult and have earned the right to do so, but they better not because they are not yet adults.
Kids are going to hear these words EVERYWHERE - you can't stop it.
lol, sorry... the experience isn't a funny one but the swear words list made me laugh. I think you did the right thing, I'm responsable for plenty of craps and damns etc around here too... but I try keep it to a minimum and to teach my DD that there are grownup words and there are other things you can say as a replacement. Today when frustrated she said crumb instead of another not so great word so I think it's working and is something I can live with...lol. Good luck with it!
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