I’d be interested in knowing how other parents deal with the issue of cussing.  This is an ongoing battle in our house…my 13-year-old thinks that mild curse words such as crap, piss, and suck are perfectly okay…and I know that they’re common among her friends.  I’ve even had to correct some of her friends in our house, much to the eye-rolling chagrin of  the daughter.  Those mild words don’t usually get punishment, but they always get correction.

But both of my older kids (5th and 7th grades), come home with stories of terrible things that their classmates say, names that get called and vile disrespect shown to adults.  And we live in a small, wholesome little town here–not exactly the tough city streets. 

This article deals with this issue (and yes, I stole their title), and this writer has a lot more shocking examples than I usually deal with in my kids and their friends. 

Obviously most parents aren’t quite as neurotic about the use of words as my DH and I are.  But, hey, we’re teachers and writers, so we know better than most that words matter.  I’d be interested in knowing how other parents approach this and how you came to that decision.

The psychologist they interview explains that kids use this kind of language becaue they hear it at home.  I think that’s only partly true; they also hear it from their friends, or just in the air at school or on TV.  There are lots of place to pick this stuff up.  The psychologist also suggests that we talk to our kids as adults, in a mature and calm manner, without yelling or punishing.

Uh huh.  It’s not always easy to talk to a 13-year-old as an adult.  But I do believe in what Abraham Lincoln says about all this:

The easiest way to train a child in the way he ought to go is to walk that way yourself.

That’s definitely true in the kinds of language we use around our homes.  Our kids are listening.

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