You know… jars where you throw in some change… or even a few bills whenever you swear, to help decrease/eliminate you and your family from saying bad words…
We don’t have one. Unless, of course… you count “stupid” as a swear word… or “dumb”… and even then we’d be left with an empty swear jar.
I’m serious. In my child’s world, the “s-word” is… stupid. Like, the word… STUPID. Yep… that’s the s-word right there.
I just asked him (like 2 minutes ago) to list all the cuss words he’s familiar with… and he spelled them out for me… he knows F (rhymes with duck), A (rhymes with gas), B (rhymes with itch) and D (rhymes with damn… dangit… I mean, DAM). No mention of S. But yep, he knows enough…
I’ve had some other parents say, “What’s the big deal? He’s going to hear about it from others anyway. You’re allowing him to remain naive.”
Well… I’m also fairly certain he’ll be exposed to illegal drugs, infidelity, and clown fetishes, but that does not mean *I* have to make them a part of our regular breakfast here at home. I don’t condone using language like that… or illegal drugs, infidelity… and especially clowns (scary as all heck!!).
I practice what I preach… and I teach by example.
Those choices are NOT OK with me and teaching & showing my son that those things have no place in our lives does NOT keep him naive… it allows him to learn what he lives. 🙂