The F Word… How To Deal With Swearing / Cursing

It’s happened, my son, my two year old, my baby says the F word. To hear that word come out of his mouth is disappointing, but i knew this would happen sooner or later with my potty mouth, and the potty mouth of the rest of the adults around him.

Kids love saying things that they know they shouldn’t, and even my two year old seems to have a sense of understanding that what his saying is bad.

However, getting a child to stop swearing, particularly when they don’t completely understand what they are saying, is challenging to say the least.

I find it upsetting to hear him say it, but i’m not going to lie, it’s also a bit funny at the same time, is that wrong?

He started saying sh*t at the start of summer, he heard from me when i dropped something and the word just slipped out and he repeated it. But i haven’t heard him say this for a while. This is probably because it’s been replaced by a worse word…f*ck/f*cking hell. He picked this up during our summer holiday, and i’m not sure if it was from me or one of the other 20 adults we were away with, not that matters now. The plan is to get him to stop….

How to stop a child swearing

1. Watch your own language. Try not to swear around your child, even if your toddler isn’t talking yet, they are taking everything in that you say. This was a clear fail for us. I am restraining from swearing around my son, and If anyone else lets slip, i ask them to be careful when talking around him.
2. Don’t overreact. When i heard my son swear for the first time, my hubby and i started telling him off, saying “That’s rude” or “Don’t say that” in a firm voice, so he knew this was unacceptable, but this was unsuccessful. I also tried a soft approach of saying, “No baby, don’t say that”. But this just seemed to fuel him more.
3. Keep calm and don’t laugh. Our current approach is to ignore him, look away and hold in the laughter (It always sounds a bit funny when he swears (worse mother award goes to moi)). Ignoring him seems to be the right approach for us, we feel if we give it too much attention he may be inclined to say it more. I feel since taking this approach he says it a lot less. We do still hear him swear, but far less then he was. In the last two weeks or so, there has been a big improvement!

Our little potty mouth is due to start nursery in September, and i’m really concerned that he will let this slip in front of other children and nursery nurse. I’m also worried he will learn more swearing from other children who also have parents with potty mouths!

But i’m not going to beat myself up about this, and if your child is doing the same, then don’t stress. They pick up these words sooner or later, it’s just a matter of our response that may either fuel it more, or calm the situation.

With older children it may be easier to control as they understand more, and punishment such as no TV or phone etc. May potentially help (but ask me in 10 years).

Has your little one let a swear word slip? I’d love to hear your stories below.