RC
2nd Feb 2005, 15:56
How do you react to a child's swearing?
Just you mind your language
If your little princess starts swearing like a trooper, how you react can make all the difference, Pete May discovers
Pete May
Wednesday February 2, 2005
Guardian
My adorable six-year-old daughter first used the F-word a few months ago while standing on the stairs having a tantrum about not wanting to go out. In fact she repeated the phrase "fucking hell!" several times with perfect adult intonation. I earnestly explained that such words were taboo and only used by adults when they were very angry. "Well, I was very angry!" she said. Then I explained that her teacher would send her out of the class for using such words, and that Daddy would be upset if she used them and so would her grandmothers, and she didn't want to give Daddy ouchy feelings now, did she?
That put a stop to the matter, but later I was beset by guilt. Was it my fault for taking her to see West Ham play? Or had she heard me using the phrase during an early morning rush? I wasn't really sure what to do, liberal dad that I am. Clearly, soap and water are no longer the answer. But should you chastise or ignore swearing? And was the fact that I was so offended a sign of my lower-middle-class sensibilities - or, deep down, was I thinking that nice girls don't swear?
At first, swearing can be funny. "When my daughter Freya was three, we were shopping and she said: 'What's the point of taking me shopping if you're not going to bloody well buy me anything!'," says her mother, Julie Targett. "I had to turn my face away because I didn't want her to know it was funny. She was repeating exactly what she'd heard me say."
But with older children it's generally less than funny. Adam Pilgrim recalls how his six-year-old daughter Tara and her friends would giggle together and ask what the F-word was. "We try to chastise Tara if she uses rude words, but the problem is we both swear. So now we make each other apologise for our own swearing in the vain hope that the children won't pick it up," he says. "I try to put it in context. I tell her: 'I don't like hearing children swear, it's not something children do, but when you get to be an adult, you'll be able to do it.'"
The experts say that whatever you do, don't get mad. "A strong parental reaction is inflating swearing to something almost evil when what it is is silly," says Ann Horne, a child psychotherapist at the British Association of Psychotherapists. "What you really need to teach them is where swearing is inappropriate." In their book Raising Happy Children, Jan Parker and Jan Stimpson suggest having a rule that certain rude words can't be used in the house by either children or adults.
Suzie Hayman, spokeswoman for Parentline, also favours the subtle approach: "Children are testing out new words all the time. The words 'albatross' and 'fuck' are the same to them. When they learn that 'fuck' or 'shit' makes parents jump more than 'albatross', they'll go on using it. The best solution is not to react, to admit that you use them too, but tell them these words can upset people, there are times and places to not use them.
"A child will swear with her friends because it helps her fit in, but not in front of her teacher. They just need to know when the words are appropriate. I was on the Oblivion ride at Alton Towers with my 11-year-old godchild and I turned to him and said, 'You're about to learn when it is appropriate to use the words 'oh shit'."
"It's also a class thing," says Julie Targett. "Swearing is accepted more in upper- and working-class families. But my family is Daily Mail-reading middle-class. I remember a terrible reaction to a 'damn' when I was a child. I once said 'fuck' at the age of 40 in front of my mum. I was mortified and I had to carry on talking pretending I hadn't said it."
Do any of us want grown-up kids who are terrified to swear in front of us? Maybe all we can do is try to keep swearing out of the house until our children become adolescents - when parents and children will probably swear at each other as much as they effing well like.
Just you mind your language
If your little princess starts swearing like a trooper, how you react can make all the difference, Pete May discovers
Pete May
Wednesday February 2, 2005
Guardian
My adorable six-year-old daughter first used the F-word a few months ago while standing on the stairs having a tantrum about not wanting to go out. In fact she repeated the phrase "fucking hell!" several times with perfect adult intonation. I earnestly explained that such words were taboo and only used by adults when they were very angry. "Well, I was very angry!" she said. Then I explained that her teacher would send her out of the class for using such words, and that Daddy would be upset if she used them and so would her grandmothers, and she didn't want to give Daddy ouchy feelings now, did she?
That put a stop to the matter, but later I was beset by guilt. Was it my fault for taking her to see West Ham play? Or had she heard me using the phrase during an early morning rush? I wasn't really sure what to do, liberal dad that I am. Clearly, soap and water are no longer the answer. But should you chastise or ignore swearing? And was the fact that I was so offended a sign of my lower-middle-class sensibilities - or, deep down, was I thinking that nice girls don't swear?
At first, swearing can be funny. "When my daughter Freya was three, we were shopping and she said: 'What's the point of taking me shopping if you're not going to bloody well buy me anything!'," says her mother, Julie Targett. "I had to turn my face away because I didn't want her to know it was funny. She was repeating exactly what she'd heard me say."
But with older children it's generally less than funny. Adam Pilgrim recalls how his six-year-old daughter Tara and her friends would giggle together and ask what the F-word was. "We try to chastise Tara if she uses rude words, but the problem is we both swear. So now we make each other apologise for our own swearing in the vain hope that the children won't pick it up," he says. "I try to put it in context. I tell her: 'I don't like hearing children swear, it's not something children do, but when you get to be an adult, you'll be able to do it.'"
The experts say that whatever you do, don't get mad. "A strong parental reaction is inflating swearing to something almost evil when what it is is silly," says Ann Horne, a child psychotherapist at the British Association of Psychotherapists. "What you really need to teach them is where swearing is inappropriate." In their book Raising Happy Children, Jan Parker and Jan Stimpson suggest having a rule that certain rude words can't be used in the house by either children or adults.
Suzie Hayman, spokeswoman for Parentline, also favours the subtle approach: "Children are testing out new words all the time. The words 'albatross' and 'fuck' are the same to them. When they learn that 'fuck' or 'shit' makes parents jump more than 'albatross', they'll go on using it. The best solution is not to react, to admit that you use them too, but tell them these words can upset people, there are times and places to not use them.
"A child will swear with her friends because it helps her fit in, but not in front of her teacher. They just need to know when the words are appropriate. I was on the Oblivion ride at Alton Towers with my 11-year-old godchild and I turned to him and said, 'You're about to learn when it is appropriate to use the words 'oh shit'."
"It's also a class thing," says Julie Targett. "Swearing is accepted more in upper- and working-class families. But my family is Daily Mail-reading middle-class. I remember a terrible reaction to a 'damn' when I was a child. I once said 'fuck' at the age of 40 in front of my mum. I was mortified and I had to carry on talking pretending I hadn't said it."
Do any of us want grown-up kids who are terrified to swear in front of us? Maybe all we can do is try to keep swearing out of the house until our children become adolescents - when parents and children will probably swear at each other as much as they effing well like.