I remember Bridget Hickey, a girl in my class at school, teaching her toddler twin sisters the most foul mouthed words she could think of at the swings in Tooting when I was about 13 – as her Mum had remarried and she was angry and jealous of her siblings.
Today my guest blogger is Laura Chora from http://www.arewenearlythereyetmummy.com
whose blog I delightfully discovered today on Twitter.
How do you handle bad words, swearing and foul language with your kids?
“We live in a street with lots of kids who all play together at one time or another. They form gangs of five, they go off in twos, sometimes three is a crowd … there are many formations. In the main they get on but there is one child who is not content to just ride bikes, swing from trees, kick a ball about and generally just get on with those precious few hours between school and bedtime.
We call him the ‘Potty Mouthed Wordsmith’.
He teaches the children new words … words the 7 year old considers rude. He shouts them in an insulting fashion and she thinks they’re so rude she spells them out to me while I try and keep a straight face. “He called me ‘G-A-E’ then ‘L-E-F-B-E-E-N’ … followed by ‘I-D-I-O-T’” she said with a look of horror on her face. She’s a fortnight off turning 8 and I imagine how easily swear words will roll off her tongue in another eight years time.”
Read more here