Alright, mamas, buckle in — because $%!t is about to get real.
Cuss words, swear words, bad words, potty language, etc. No matter what you call them, everyone has an opinion. Whether it’s an opinion about parents using these words in front of their kids or about parents allowing their children to swear in front of them, everyone has one. This post is not to say that my opinion is the “right one” or that people who have differing opinions are wrong. It’s purely just to share my opinion and the “why” behind my decision.
Right off the bat, I will just raise my hand (or both hands, maybe) and share that yes, I do sometimes use swear words in front of my kids. Usually it’s in the car, and I’m sure I’m the only one who does that, right? Sometimes, not nearly as often though, I will use a cuss word intentionally to get the attention of my oldest child when he’s super escalated. Now take a breath, because no, I’m not using the “really bad” ones, and no, I’m not using them at him. It’s just a mildly surprising word that, when he’s in the middle of a severe ADHD, highly sensing person-style meltdown, is just enough to throw him off and disrupt the dysregulation. And now that I’ve made that confession, let me also confess that yes, I do also let my kids use swear words sometimes.
READ: How We Choose to Manage ADHD In Our Family
*Insert dramatic pause for everyone to gasp and pretend to be shocked or silently look around and make sure they’re in a safe place before they start clapping in solidarity.*
This isn’t a decision I made because I think it’s funny to hear kids curse or because I don’t care about how they’re perceived. There are real reasons behind my decision, and I hope you’ll read them before you come at me with your judgments.
1. I want my children to know that words are just words. Yes, some may be less appropriate in certain contexts, but ultimately, it’s not a word that is going to hurt someone’s feelings. It’s the intention of using the word. Whether the word is truly a “spicy” word or if the word is a potty word such as poop head… the intention is what makes them hurtful. The words themselves are just words — functions of language. My hope in teaching them this is that:
- They will use and understand language appropriately.
- They won’t be quick to judge the character of another person based on if they use bad words or not. Instead, they’ll be able to tell the difference between a word being used correctly vs. a word being employed to hurt someone else.
- In the same way that most kids learn that words such as “stupid, ugly, dumb” are unkind to use to talk about people, the same is true for spicier words. In teaching them that language is important, I hope they grow up to be people who don’t use any of these words to disparage other people or their work (school work, art work, etc.).
2. Teaching them about these words means that I have control over explaining what they mean. I would much prefer my children to learn what words actually mean and ask questions about them in a safe space with me, rather than learn random versions of the truth from their friends. If they understand what the words mean, they can use them appropriately and can deduce when it is not appropriate to use them. An important boundary with this is that if they don’t understand the meaning of a word, they shouldn’t be using it.
3. Sometimes, using these words can help us express ourselves, regardless of our age. Whether it’s a quick curse word to blow off a brief bout of frustration or a few of them to emphasize the severity of our feelings, it can help. Seriously, there’s research on this — how using swear words can help with the tolerance of physical pain and the mitigation of daily stressors. I don’t want them to think that certain words are too big for me to handle. We don’t suppress our feelings in my home; we learn how to express them without harming or hurting others.
So yes, I let my kids say the words that all of our parents and grandparents gasp at. But I do it in a way where I’m in control of what they’re learning about the words and hopefully modeling the best ways to use them. Which, for the record, includes the fact that if they know someone is upset by a certain word, and they continue to use it around them anyway, they aren’t using it correctly because their intentions are bad. So, grandparents, no, my children shouldn’t be using their spicy words in front of you — please relax.
Cheers to breaking cycles, not spirits — one cuss word at a time.
XOXO,
Liv
