sticks and stones

here are my follow up musings on name calling, which I referred to in to my post about sibling rivalry.

It seems like a good idea to many parents to control the language their children are using, be it swearing, name calling, or general rudeness. When they tell me this, I reply cheerfully, "Good luck with that!"

This is no different than any other parenting battle, and you will almost certainly lose it at some point. The more you try to control what your kid is saying, the more fun it becomes for him to remind you that you cannot. You could beat him within an inch of his life, not that I recommend this approach, and he could still mumble obscenities at his brother under his remaining breath five minutes later. Autonomy is the most powerful drive for a lot of growing humans, remember? sure, some kids are so compliant that they just happily adjust themselves to your preferences. and chances are that if you have that kind of kid, you are not hiring a parenting consultant!

so if your kids are feisty and independent and will go to any lengths to avoid being controlled, what do you do? gosh I hope you love this answer as much as I do ... it is so sweetly simple.

first, decide clearly for yourself or in collusion with your spouse what standards for language will apply in your family. there are a wide range of possibilities here. To me, language is just words, and in my house, anything goes. My kids are very much able to control their tongues in public and school, so they are not socially handicapped by my choice not to make this a battle. We have talked about how other folks may be offended, and that in certain situations it just may not work real well to talk in certain ways. But of course, depending on your values, that may or may not work for your family standard. So get clear on your expectations, and communicate them to your kids.

oh, and don't forget ... you better be able to follow them yourself! hypocrisy doesn't really add much to your credibility.

Second, decide what the consequences will be for straying outside the boundaries. this is a critical part to get right. these consequences absolutely must be solely under your control. for example, "Kids who use appropriate language are welcome to come to the park with me. If I hear you using words that might be offensive to others, I won't be comfortable taking you out in public, so we'll just stay home and you can play in the backyard."

make sure you tie the loss of opportunity or privilege to something the kids want to do, not something you need or want to do. something that you would just as soon not bother doing for them is even better!

then just sit back happily and wait for an opportunity to apply your consequence with kindness, maintaining the attitude that it really does not mattter to you at all if they never go to the park again. Say your piece, then busy yourself doing something else. I promise, the backyard gets old quick!

the magic of this approach is that you have removed your attention and anger and powerlessness as a reinforcer for their behavior. without those things, it is just not so much fun anymore. Won't be all that long before the kids CHOOSE a different approach to language use - simply because it works better for them to do so. no control, no force, no battle. just a choice. autonomy preserved.


name calling seems to be an especially hot trigger for some parents. they just hate hearing their little cherubs rip each other to shreds verbally. once again, your attention is what makes this game so much fun. if you were to be a fly on the wall, you might even notice that the 'victim' antagonizes the 'perpetrator' so he can then come running to you and complain! all that sympathy is worth the trauma ...

can you imagine how much fun it would be for you to say this to your kids:

everyone is entitled to their opinion, and to share it. this is a free country! and we are also all free to decide what to believe and what to listen to. so if it was me, and my brother was sharing his opinion about me and I did not like hearing it, I might just decide to play somewhere else for a while.

I suspect that after a few of these responses, the complaints would rapidly diminish. words only have the power we choose to give them! don't teach your child to give any weight to someone else's opinion of him. if you freak out because one kid calls another stupid, what are you teaching them both? that it actually means something! if they called each other purple, would you intervene?