Lately my son as been using bad language. I am thinking about washing his mouth out with a bar of soap. Has anyone else done this before? Should I?

I think I'd use that as a last resort. (A lot of people will get upset regarding chemicals and such but my feeling is they get it in their mouths at tub time, too). Maybe try a bucket of bad word toys and he has to put a toy in everytime he uses one -- or you put a toy in every time he uses one... You know, consequence for the behavior and he has to earn it back maybe by going a certain amount of time without saying a bad word whether it is an hour/day/week depending on how often he uses them and how old he is.

I'm guessing if you've tried a lot of things that the soap will work a lot faster..... I simply told my girls about the concept of soap in th emouth for bad words and well.... that was enough. I remind them of it if they have a "set back" with the language.

Kelly, How old is your son?

My daughter is now 13 but, beginning when she was much younger I coached her on "what was appropriate when" and as far as "bad words" those were always inappropriate. Somehow (couldn't have been her fowl mouth father) those words seeped in. I would remind her they were inappropriate and not make a huge deal out of them coming out of her mouth. I did this not to de-sensitize her but to make those words less of an exclamation or adjective that would get response. Now those words slip occasionally (from me too sometimes) and i remind her of the usage and move on. I also remind her those words are mostly nouns but, less intelligent people use them as adjectives for the shock factor and the lack of vocabulary.

:welcome: I hope you enjoy it here!

LOL, my mom used tabasco, the hottest she could find,applyed directly to the tounge. We used Thumb also, this the stuff that you use on a child who won't stop sucking their thumb.

(((((Paul))))) I'll never ever understand that, never want to understand it.

sure worked on me when I was a kid. What don't you understand, it was better then what nutsie wanted to do and that was a belt, I wouldn't let her though. I did have my limits, I can't see beating the **** out of your children helps any.

Hey Kelly, I've tried the soap thing when my 7yr old was younger it wound up being a cat and mouse chase literally. chase her down wrestle the soap in there only to be spit at. Although she doesn't curse she can be very disrespectful. I dock her piggy bank .50 cents everytime she says "no" or "i don't care" and so on. Then when she can go a week without saying she gets the money back. it's been a slow process but it's working. hope that helps

The beauty of girls... hit them where it counts, the good old piggy bank! (Been there, done that, my little stinkers started taking the money out and putting it in different places so I couldn't get it from themLOL Smart for sure, not good for my cause though)

I can't help but post to this one - I love the taste of Ivory soap....lol. My oldest brother made sure that all of us knew every swear word in the book before we were 5 yrs old. My poor mother!

Anyway, I agree with CA, explain that specific words are not to be used and whatever you do don't react when your child uses a bad word. Your actions speak louder than your words. If you calmly tell them not to use it in public and be consistent with your requests/rules they will catch on.

My daughter is too young yet to understand that some of the words she parrots are inappropriate for public use. So I suggest that she not use them and sometimes give her another word to use instead when she wants to express herself - like instead of H*** use barnacles as a replacement word.

This may backfire on me in the future but I feel that if I stay consistent with not reacting and explain that we don't use that language in our home or public she'll catch on.

When my kids were old enough to talk I told them the swear words, then I proceeded to tell them I never wanted to hear them come out of their mouths because it was disrespectful. Sometimes my kids will slip and I will say to them " excuse me what did you say?" and they correct themselves. For the most part I have been very lucky that they never went around blurtting bad words out, especially in front of other people.

My mom told me a story that she had taken my sister out shopping when she was maybe 6, my sister all of a sudden looked at one of the price tags and yelled out "holly @#$!" there were people all around and mom said she was so embarrassed. THank god that has never happened to me.

Good luck to ya girl! Hopefully you can nip it in the bud before you get embarressed like my mom LOL.

My whole life growing up, my moter would always threaten me with soap in my mouth, she never did it. I always thought it was only meant to be a threat and that nobody ACTUALLY did it. until i saw the mother do it in "A CHRISTMAS STORY", anybody remember that, when the kid starts to daydream about how he sorta hoped that when he grew up he would become blind because of the soap in his mouth, and his mother would cry and beg for forgiveness. yea i would leave that stuff for the movies.
I mean, if a child is like 5 or younger and they pick up some words, the reality is that someone around them is obviously using these words enought o make them want to experiment with them themselves, once you(assuming its NOT you), explain to the child that its not acceptable, they should stop. If they dont , even after you have explained, then your dealing with the natural inner rebellion of a child and there is more phsycology involved than soap can handle, its really a matter of a lack of respect, I beleive. see, my kids listen to me, i have never had too much of a problem with them over REPEAT offenses, i beleive its because they really trust my judgement, i take time to tell them what i think and how i feel about stuff, mostly when it doesnt even invole THEIR behavior, kinda pointing out OTHER peoples behavior , and where it is unapropriate. Maybe this doesnt make a lot of sense, but it really works. My children behave because they UNDERSTAND that being well behaved is good and desireable and not because ive FORCED them to obey me.

I understand but..... all children are different and there are often other forces at work than just the custodial parent.


Mine behave in public, because they know it is desirable.... at home is a different story, they know how they should behave... quite honestly I don't think they care. (they do not have potty mouths thankfully)

yea, let me clarify that is exactly the case, my kids are not statuesque angels in anyway. Most of the time they need to just be kids and stuff will just flow for instance....
once , more than a year ago now, I found an illustrated book that my children had drawn and put together. It was entitled, "I love my but", and in this book were the most graphic pictures you can conjure to your imagination. but there was of course an innocence to it as well, it was indeed an ode to a butt. So I pulled my daughter aside, who was no doubt the catalyst of the project and explained to her that since the beginning of tome artist have been subject to censorship and that somethings are not considered appropriate, that there was nothing wrong persay with drawing nudes"of course i was patronizing her a little", but instead of just freaking on her(them) I tried to make her understand WHY it might not be approriate. but ultimately it is different from one child to another but still all children(and adults) are kind of supposed to be living according to some kind of common expectations, although i can obviously see, as i walk around outside on a daily basis that some parents arent even trying to instill any virtue in their children. seem s no one is teaching some children about kindness, compassion or self denial. Its all about gettin whats yours, and if this is whats taught then you cant expect anything but the murderous children "somebodies" raising out there.
Damn that was long winded

quote:

Originally posted by supplied01:
[qb] So I suggest that she not use them and sometimes give her another word to use instead when she wants to express herself - like instead of H*** use barnacles as a replacement word.
[/qb]

Thats too funny my daughter does that too. She says things like"oh pickles" I told her one time to use a word that was something she really liked and at that point it was chicken. So now very often when she gets upset or angry she say "aww chicken" It's too funny

I do the word change thing for myself!LOL I think my mother taught my brother that as a kid (he was the one with the mouth) and we all fell into line.

Brotheryyyy... let me first tell you that my daughter Delia would adore anything titled "Ode to Butt" We are going through a bit of a flashing issue here. I am trying to explain the inappropriateness of the whole thing to them. I'm guessing Daddy and Nana laugh at it but I refuse to have my daughter flashing herself at the dinner table or in the kitchen, watching a movie, in the car. Sure it is cute and funny and innocent the first time, maybe few times but it is not acceptable behavior. She's now got her twin crackign up hysterically at it and doing it back.... then they start pulling at one another's clothing to do it for them. It is snowballing. For now, they seem to know it is not o.k. to do at the store or in school. My feeling is habits die hard. I've explained it that they may do it out somewhere and become embarrassed. I've explained that it is not o.k. to do in public, that it is not acceptable for older people to do and I've even explained it is against the law to do in public so they should practice NOT doing it at home....

To no avail, I was flashed this evening and yup, Daddy was here dropping them off and giggled... I harped in on the innappropriateness. I wonder what he'd think if she was 15 and doing this. Right now sure, she's 5 1/2.... cute at 1 or 2, not so cute anymore. Plus it goes along with the "ode to but" mentality. I think my largest battle other than the other parent's reaction is her sidekick look-alike. They are one another's best audience and no matter what I say they think they are both the funniest people on earth.... (did you mention long wind)

(long winded and nothing to do with anything really LOL That's what they've done to me in the short hour and a half they were home prior to zonking out tonight.)


Thankfully the artist in the family is not the same child that is focused on private parts