[Oz-gifted] swearing

Mon Dec 4 08:32:41 EST 2006

 Hi Ellen,
>
>I would agree with Anna that ...

"Sex education is a different issue entirely." though we did have to
address that at what I consider to be a young age (about 7 from memory).

On the swearing issue - my little one has always had an extensive
vocabulary and we argued that swearing is for when you can't think of a
better word and that since he had such an excellent store of words to
chose from he didn't really need it - this appealed beautifully to his
ego and worked a treat (also let me off the hook for the occasional
clanger as on those occasions I was just too frustrated to find one of
those alternative words!).

As for explaining the meanings - we side stepped that for a long time
and instead explained that a lot of people find certain terms very
offensive and get quite upset when they hear them (he has relatives who
get most upset at very mild language so this was important) - this
particular term is offensive to a lot of people so is best avoided at
all times. I did eventually have to explain what it referred to but I
think he was about 10 by then (where as he was only 4 the first time he
tried it out!)

Good luck

Robyn

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