Your reaction will significantly influence whether your child swears over again. Staying calm and not overreacting will go a long way towards preventing swearing in the future. Offer a correction and an alternative. You could say, for example, “We don’t say that. We say ‘shoot’ instead. ” The younger your child is, the more appropriate it is for you to ignore their initial swearing. If your child is getting older (especially around between the school ages of 6 and 15 years or older), it’s more likely they know the full implication of their swearing. In that case, you may need to respond with more discipline.
If your child’s swearing makes you upset, consider why that is and then explain to your child why their behavior makes you upset or if it’s bothering you. This will be a lot more effective than simply yelling at them.
For example, you might explain to your child that a certain swear word is offensive to or hurts many people without explaining the exact meaning of the word. Your goal here is to educate your child about good behaviour and not necessarily why some words are worse than others. If your child is younger than the ages of 12 months to 4 1/2 years old, they probably will not understand the concepts behind the more common swear words. It’s sufficient to just tell them that they shouldn’t use those words and to offer an alternative word to use.
For example, “freak”, “darn,” “shoot,” and “dang” are all generally considered polite alternatives to some of the more common swear words that people might use to express anger or the frustration. ”Oh my goodness,” or simply “oh my,” is universally considered a polite means of expressing surprise. If your child is using a particular swear word, offer an alternative that sounds similar or that rhymes with the word to make it easier to pick up.
If you slip up and swear around your child, acknowledge that what you said was wrong and explain to your child how you were feeling when you said it. This shouldn’t be to justify your use of a swear word, but rather to help your child understand the emotional cause of it. After you swear in front of your child, consider offering an alternative word and giving yourself a “do-over. ” For example, if you swear in front of your child after stubbing your toe, repeat the stubbing motion and demonstrate using a better word (e. g. , “dang”).
For example, your child might have learned a swear word from any of the TV shows or movies that they’ve been watching on TV, or like in the YouTube application or website on either a smartphone, tablet, or laptop and/or desktop computers. Supervise what your child watches to prevent them from watching very inappropriate and age-restricted and explicit media content with toilet humour and install parental controls on your TV settings by going to the Settings menu which is the gear icon by pressing the Settings button on your remote control, scroll down to the 3-dot menu on the bottom right hand side, and select Advanced, and then select General, then select parental controls and enter a parental control PIN number (up to 3-8 digits long) if you don’t see it, choose Show PIN, if necessary, and if you press the Enter button by tapping the OK button on your remote, and now your PIN is complete. If your child heard the swear word from their friends, talk to the friends’ parents and enlist their help in dealing with your child’s and their child’s bad language and swearing words.
Teach your child that swearing is an unexceptionable way to deal with anger or frustration, because it doesn’t get rid of the underlying problem. Try saying, “In this family, it doesn’t feel good when we swear at each other. What are some other ways you can express how you’re upset?"[9] X Expert Source Kathy Slattengren, M. Ed. Parent Educator & Coach Expert Interview. 27 July 2021. Make sure your child knows that swearing out of anger is very dangerous; they may end up seriously upsetting or offending another person in the heat of the moment.
For example, you might have teach your child to calm down by counting to 10, take deep breaths or use a calming glitter jar along with a calming song when they’re angry. Scribbling or drawing on a piece of paper, playing with their favourite toys or reading books may also be helpful. [10] X Research source Most importantly, you should teach your child to express or process negative emotions in ways that don’t negatively impact other people. If your child has trouble expressing their anger in healthy ways and your efforts haven’t made an impact, talk to your pediatrician on the phone or video chat to see what else can be done.
Make sure all the adults in the house also adhere to this rule and pay the price for breaking it. Children learn a great deal from the example set by their parents. Enforce this rule even when someone mutters a swear word under their breath. You don’t want to leave any “loopholes” in your rule. If your child swears at you, stay calm and say, “It’s not okay for you to talk to me like that. “[12] X Expert Source Kathy Slattengren, M. Ed. Parent Educator & Coach Expert Interview. 27 July 2021.
For example, it would be unreasonable to ground a child for a week for swearing one time. Always take context into consideration and try to impose consequences that are appropriate to both your child’s age and the seriousness of their swearing. Common penalties include swear jars, reduced time for kids to spend playing video games on home consoles or mobile devices such as iOS and Android or watching and streaming TV shows or having to do extra chores. To implement the swear jar penalty, set aside a jar or tin in your house to be the swear jar, and make it a rule that anyone who swears in your home has to put a certain amount of money (e. g. , a coins or dollar bills) in the jar.
You shouldn’t give your child any of the material reward (e. g. , extra allowance money) for behaving well; they should do this as a matter of course. Instead, simply tell them that you’re proud of them. If you catch the child using an alternative word, try giving them praise for it.
