Nanci Kuykendall

My kids swear. They do it as an explative sometimes
(when they are mad or whatever) or sometimes just
mixed causally in their speech. Sometimes they use
the words wrong, or in odd combinations, which is
always amusing. We encourage them not to do it away
from home, because they don't know yet when and where
it's appropriate. Sometimes if I get tired of it
because they are doing it a lot at a certain time, I
just say "hey, could you tone down the swearing a bit,
I am getting tired of it right now." It's always as a
part of their speech though, not just swearing to be
swearing. They are not fascinated or attached to the
words themselves.

Often they don't swear at all for days or weeks, it
just depends. If adults are swearing more aound them,
they will swear more. They also "get" the witty
almost swear jokes in books and movies (like Shit-ake
mushrooms from the Spy Kids movies.)

We don't attach value to the words, we just let them
know that they are considered strong impact words and
we talk about meanings if they want to know. One of
them swore around their grandparents during a camping
trip this summer. From the reaction they got, I doubt
they will do it around their grandparents again any
time soon, not that we see them a lot anyways.

My boys are 6 and almost 8, by the way.

Nanci K.