Parents: help needed
 

So, my 3 year old has developed a love of the word "f*cker" whenever he's upset. I have let foul language slip VERY rarely around him, but have never used that particular word. Mostly my slips have been when stubbin the toe, or when we are driving and someobe cuts me off. He primarily uses it when he is upset with either myself or his mom by calling us a "f*cker".

I'm sure it's not the first time someone has had a problem like this. Just wondering how anyone has squashed the issue. It's becoming very frustrating for me. He will be 4 in august.

Any suggestions are appreciated.
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Re: Parents: help needed
 

Can you try and make him understand what the word means and when it should be used?

Re: Parents: help needed
 

Good luck Bro. Thats a tough age to reason with.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

I have a 4yr old boy who had a similar issue. I tried ignoring him, I tried calmly explaining, one day I lost it and whooped his backside. He has never said it since.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

This is what I did with my daughter when she was around the same age. I was listening to a Godsmack song and didn't realize they were about to say f*ckin' until it happened. My daughter asked what that meant and I explained what was explained to me by a great friend of mine years ago when I said it for everything. I explained to her about how it can be used to place emphasis in certain situation but if used all of the time it loses its meaning and just gives the user the image of having a foul mouth. I also explained that if used very sparingly, it could help get a point across. She understood and other words came up on occasion. This seems to have worked for me.

Only once in the last year or two did I hear her start saying damn for everything. I reminded her of our talk, and a certain person that emulates that behavior, and she stopped because she didn't want to be seen that way.

I hope this helps.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

calmly sit him down and through a talk point out healthy ways to get our feelings or frustrations out. Worked with my kid. and we have fun words when we stub the toe or get shot on xbox.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

My mom beat my a55 and washed my mouth out with soap. Ivory if remember correctly.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

I have always done well with clearly detailed consequences to misbehaving followed up with unwavering, swift application of said consequences when needed. Kids will continue to do what they get away with. Give him a tough punishment next time, and that should be the last next time.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

The definitive answer:

Sentence Enhancers

Re: Parents: help needed
 

3 year olds aren't philosophy majors. I would just tell her it is a bad word and she isn't allowed to use it. You can explain it more when she's older.
Where do you think she's picking it up from?

Re: Parents: help needed
 

Yeah Don, same thing happened to me.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

Just went through it myself!

We told our like guy that he could say other words instead!

We gave him examples! "Oh fiddlesticks!" It made it funny and gave him a positive rather than a negative!

If that doesn't work you can always slap the f**k out of him!!!;)

Re: Parents: help needed
 

Good 'ole fashion butt whoppin' is what I remember getting and the soap in the mouth as well.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

Soap, whippin...yup I had all of those too.

Our son at that time used to say Fire-f@ck Fire-F@ck everytime he saw a firetruck go by. Funny stuff really......then there was the embarrassing Easter dinner with friends when our daughter announced celebrating the re-erection of Christ. We all pretty much lost it around the table that night.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

Thanks for all the input, guys. I had tried rationalizing with him, but that didn't work. He is 3 after all lol. Time outs only produced a giant series of F bombs screamed at teh top of his lungs (which is when he got spanked for it the first time.) The spanking has worked somewhat, but hasn't squashed the issue. Haven't tried soap yet. Maybe that will work. also, substituting sounds like a great idea. I'll give that a shot next.

The biggest underlying problem may be attention seeking. I feel that the age of smart phones has people less interactive with each other. I'm sure it takes a toll on the kids. So last night I sat down with the gf and we came to an agreement of NO PHONE STUFF (except actual calls) whenever we are around the kids. I actually think this will help. Because kids crave attention, whether positive or negative. If we aren't responding because in the middle of an email, or reading facebook, or whatever, he may actually be drawing negative attention for attention's sake.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

This approach, if done correctly, will work for SOME kids. For some it does the complete opposite and causes serious damage to relationships. I'll give you two personal examples of where it didn't work.

All of my life I have had horrible allergy/sinus issues. When I was a child my doctor said I had the worse case of allergies he'd seen in any man, woman, or child. So, I've always had a little "snort" of sorts. If I don't snort I can't breathe right. Well, sitting in my 1st grade class in Catholic school the nun teaching it would tell me not to do that. I couldn't stop. She proceeded to hit me with a ruler/yard stick across the hands. I didn't like that and after several of her attempts to correct my "behavior" I told the old b!tch to f*ck off. She proceeded to wash my mouth out with soap. Well, I couldn't do anything physically to this hooded bully, so I cussed her out as much as I could until I was suspended. My parents took me out of the school soon afterward. As for the nun, she was supposed to represent God. Because of her actions, and the constant sermons of Hell, Satan, and punishment, I began to associate God with anger, hate, and abuse. I never looked back at the Catholic church once I left and only returned to God 20 years later after hearing the loving side of the story and witnessing some of the finer points of some believers actions.

Now that I typed it out I'll PM the second example so that it's not hanging out on the interweb forever for everyone to see.

The point is, physical discipline works for some and not for others, physical punishment for none, and physical discipline can actually make one associate you in a way that you don't want. The reason it works for some is measurable psychologically, but I won't go into that, but it can cause far more harm than good.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

When a 3-year-old sees a reaction of any kind from their parents to anything they have said, they keep saying it to keep getting the reaction. Ignore it when he says the f-word and make sure not to use it around him.

MCS

Re: Parents: help needed
 

Whippin always worked for me but now I use f%#* as a punctuation mark. So not sure what will come of it.

If all else fails I think there is a thread about a kid in a cage on here.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

My parents did the physical stuff, as I got educated older I learned it may help smack someone when he's doing something wrong or when angry so I am a talk guy. you have to talk at their language I lucked out I had a bright young kid in his terrible age and I was able to communicate with him and never raised me hand or soap.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

I guess I am lucky with time outs still working to a degree. My son has had a few slips of the tongue. Once, I was in the bedroom while my son was sitting in the living room. He was watching something on TV and I heard him swear. I gave it a second so I could process and get over what I heard. LOL I called him up and asked him what he just said. DENY is all he did. And then it turned into the ramifications of lieing. He fessed up that he said it and BEGGED me to NOT tell his dad. "Please don't tell Dad! Please, please, please..." Well Dad was told. He got talked to from both of us. He got a time out. We also have a bad word jar. He had to pay $2.00 to the jar. Which he hates paying into especially when his father doesn't... Which is a whole nother conversation... LOL

He does know it's wrong. And there have been maybe 4 times in 2 or 3 years where he has slipped.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

I believe that physical should be a last resort, but for some young kids they need the quick association of consequences. I do however believe that ONLY a parent or grandparent should ever spank and a grandparent should only do so if the parent allows it. If a teacher, nun or not, had ever struck me I would have had a similar reaction. I also think that as soon as a child can understand restrictive punishment that spanking should stop. As a grade school kid or older if something dear to me was taken then I responded much more readily.

I do think that consistency is the absolute key to any form of discipline, if a kid gets away with it sometimes but not others they will keep testing and eventually doubt your authority.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

Words of wisdom.

I had a similar issue. Also 3-4 year old.
I knew where my daughter heard it (for those that know me... can you believe it wasn't me? :D)
I would never touch my daughter out of discipline or for any reason for that matter.
I simply used my booming, stern tone that she knows means business and proceeded to tell her that she was not to repeat what she had heard. I said I don't care who she heard say it, but that isn't something little girls say. I asked if she understood, to which she said yes... then laid on the tears.

I always think that adopting a no touch, stern talking approach early on is the best approach. Physical contact only leads to aggression by them later.

Good luck

Re: Parents: help needed
 

I totally agree with this!

I don't deny that my son hears me say bad words. Wes once called me out and said, "You dropped the F bomb 5 times during that phone conversation." Okay. Fair. I did. For those who play with my hubby on XBox... How is his swearing? LOL

Re: Parents: help needed
 

Good old fashioned discipline, nothing wrong with it... Some folks my not agree with it but I'll be DAMNED if any of my kids & are the ones who shoot up the school because I didnt put my foot down like a parent should...

This is more for the folks who are 30-plus & grew up with disciple before it was call child abuse... Nothing wrong with rosing up his backside alittle. By no means am I saying beat the kid just remind him who is the one in charge. Sometime a small pat on the butt is enough to keep him from using it again.

I had this problem with my 2 year old he would use the B-word...

Re: Parents: help needed
 

I am afraid I come down on this side. There is very little that will get past a good mouth-washing-out
with soap. If you explain that this is what dirty mouths get, it will definitely put the clamps on dirty words.
A55 whippins also work, but are best reserved for the soap not working. Get it good and wet and soapy
and get it all in there and work it around. It takes a LONG time to get that taste out of your mouth.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

Pretty sure I got a good "Dont say that again talk" and that didnt work. Then I got a spanking and I didn't say it again. Different strokes for different folks.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

It's difficult, curse words are everywhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebv51QNm2Bk (NSFW Language) :r

Re: Parents: help needed
 

I have no lil kids of my own but all I can add is that when I did that as a child all I can remember is my @ss hurting everytime I said it.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

Time out can still work, the thing with it over a butt whopping is it takes more effort on your part! I myself would do both, whopp then time out. When doing time out you do one minute per age (rule of thumb) so it would be one minute. I use a a wall to stand them against but you can use a chair or whatever, just make sure there is nothing that they can play with, attention getting etc.... When you put him in time out and he keeps saying the word then you start over, and you explain this to him, he gets up and walks away, you take him and put him back! If it talks 1, 2, 3, hours to get the 3 minutes of quite time you have to do it!!!! HE CAN NOT WIN! Not even one time! You do this and do it right and I promise it will work. May take a few times, and may only work a little while before he will test you again, but in the long run you stick with it and it will work.

If I was you my main concern will be where did he get it from? It didn't come out of the blue, so if you and the wife don't talk like that then another care taker does and if it was my child I couldn't go for that.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

My daughter doesn't say any bad words. We just told her that they were bad and she was not to say them.

She like Toes, by Zac Brown Band, and when the song says ass she just stops and picks up as if it wasn't in the song. It's quite amusing.

Re: Parents: help needed
 

It's pretty tough, but coming along slowly. Doing a combination of things so far. The one that has been working pretty good is changing it to a different word, and laughing about it. So, the new word is "fudgenutter". I let him pick it out.

Time outs sort of work. Still working on that. I will try the advice offered.

Spankings are working a little, but not much. And I fear that too much spanking will render that punishment useless after too long.

Thanks for all the input, guys. It's starting to work!

Re: Parents: help needed
 

:tpd: Use the pat on the butt as an attention getter about behavior/attitude/language/etc.





...and :c and :fu2 LOL

Re: Parents: help needed
 

Yes, exactly! My son is 8 years old and is still afraid of getting time outs. When an adult does something wrong, he expects them to get them. LOL

Re: Parents: help needed
 

This is not the answer for a lot of parents, but it's always worked for me with my kids.
This works too, but with a 3yr old, it's gonna take a LOT of ignoring. 3yr olds are stubborn little brats. My oldest two were, and my youngest is now (he's 4 and going through a similar phase, not cussing, but trying to test his limits on a lot of things). Spanking my four year old doesn't seem to work lately.