Swearing and Violent Play

[reneegardner494]

Hi everyone!

I have been using Aussie childcare for years but had never signed up for an account so here's to my first forum post


I have a burning question for everyone that I have had since beginning in childcare 5 years ago;

When a child comes in swearing and the parents do not take the matter seriously or are unable to sort the behaviour, what steps does your centre take to rectify the problem?

For a bit of background, we have a child who is allowed to play COD & Grand Theft Auto at home, so is well aware of violence and swearing. This child is a preschooler and is currently spreading this behaviour around the room.

To give you an insight, we have quite the problem with the 'F' word (any swear word to the children at our centre) we are mainly having a problem with the word 'Sh1@t' and the word 'Fu$#*%g'. These two words spreading to the younger rooms is just not acceptable so we finally cut down on the amount of swearing happening but now we've had a parent come in complaining that her 4 year old son has been saying that he is 'going to cut your throat' (something we can only imagine was learned from the child who plays COD) and we want to assure this parent that the necessary steps are being taken to resolve this issue.

This is where we need a bit of help, we want to visually show parents that we are being proactive and provide them with solutions to use at home. Is there any articles, websites or flyers that anyone knows of that we can show parents or even use ourselves to help with tackling antisocial behaviours and violent behaviour.

Thanks everyone

[Lorina]

Hi!

It’s great to hear you’re a frequent user of this site!

Ok, I completely get what you’re going through with the swear words - it’s not intentional and the child using them is most probably doing it to get a reaction. I think the more we say ‘that’s a bad word’ the child’s eyes light up knowing he can use it to his advantage.

You need to replace the swear words with more appropriate words that can be used such as bugger, aww shocks, darn it.. etc.

So when they use the swear word instead of saying “don’t say that - it’s a bad word” you can say something like “that word hurts my ears - let’s use bugger instead” or “another way to say it is bugger”. You need to be firm and consistent - you may need to just say “that word hurts - it makes us sad to hear you say that”.

So you’re trying to deal with the word being said without bringing to much attention to it...

[catscantswim]

Hey, it's quite complicated situation cause that requires taking tough calls to make. First of all, i should recommend you to cut this mature games and switch to something like http://www.manamonster.com/educational-games that looks more like child games and actually develops some mind capabilities.