What the f*ck?! Kids and cursing.

It ain't cute, but what does it mean and what do we do?

Cartoon by Jason Chatfield

I posted the following on my FB page in 2016:

My eldest child (12 yo) came home from school and she was throwing her backpack around. She was stomping about, rolling eyes, angry, yelling, and finally I got, "you are all fucking assholes."

I hugged her and said, "But we are YOUR fucking assholes."

She started laughing/crying. (you know that feeling, right?)

I hugged her and she said sorry. She talked about the friendship difficulties at school.

No worries, I said. I get it.

I GET IT.

Language does NOT throw me off my parenting game.

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Back then, a number of parents wrote in the comments things like, “This isn’t okay, my kids need to learn how to express themselves to me without the cursing” or “This is disrespectful and children won’t learn how to speak to adults…”

And I get it. You hear language like this and your worst fears spring up. Your child will be a neerdowell, never making it in life due to their horrible mouth. And it all reflects on you, as the parent.

You also may be utterly triggered by the cursing, based on your own life experiences and childhood.

And listen, cursing is rough. The reason it is so good is because it is so bad…and while it scratches an itch other words simply cannot, chronic and flagrant cursing is not the sign of emotionally mature person (usually…there’s always an exception).

But let’s just place aside all of our biases and red lines, and instead, let’s look at what cursing means and what you can actually do about it.