When the Mouse was little, like, learning to walk little, my mommy friends and I used to talk about how great it would be if we could just put our toddlers in protective bubbles. Or even better, hamster wheels made of hard plastic that they could run around in, and not get hurt. If they ran into the edge of the brick mantle? They’d just bounce off of it and start down a different path through the living room. Also? They wouldn’t be able to get into every.little.thing. in my house either … so less messes. WIN.
Now that the Mouse is almost four years old {OMG} I want to put him into an entirely different kind of bubble. Something pliable, yet sound proof.
How can I say this … tactfully? Whenever my kid gets around other kids his age, or really, kids that are OLDER than him, I want to put earmuffs on him. I find that for the every one naughty word my kid hears from another kid, it takes a good week to make him realize it’s not okay to say it. And I’m not talking about blatant curse words, I’m talking just plain obnoxious or gross terms or phrases.
Example? After this past weekend and being around some of his older cousins, all I am constantly hearing about his ‘butt’.
‘Look at my buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutt mommy!’ ‘Ewwwwwwww, look at Mommy’s butt!’ ‘Baby Froggy’s butt is showing!’
Or how about hearing your not-quite 4 year old tell you to ‘shut up’? Yeah, that was loads of fun.
I am now starting to understand some of the benefits of homeschooling.
I get that I can’t keep him cooped up forever so as not to learn things I don’t want him to know about. He can’t watch only Bubble Guppies and Dora until he’s 20 {but I CAN keep Spongebob out of my house … grrrr}. It is AMAZING to me though that ONE afternoon with a 5/6/7/8 year old creates at least a weeks worth of timeouts for me to deal with over crappy behavior and language.
How do you guys handle this sort of thing? I can only imagine how much MORE I’ll be doing it once the Mouse is the 6 year old teaching the Froggy awful habits, lol.
C has picked up “Oh My God” from someone. We’ve talked about how and why we don’t say that. Now every time I catch her saying it, she starts singing, “when I in awesome wonder consider all the world your hands have made…” and proceeds to sing all of How Great Thou Art.
Yeah, my three year old runs around singing “Sexy and I know it.” Guess I was a little bit late on the limiting the radio in the car thing…. oops.
I totally feel you on this. Landon has one kid with a potty mouth and bad behavior in his class. Whenever Landon says something bad I asked him who he heard it from and it is always that one kid. I have complained to the daycare and apparently so has every other parent! But nothing is changing. Ugh!
My girls picked up “oh my god”, which my uber conservative baptist inlaws LOVE, I’m sure.
My mom taught the girls “damnit”. Not on purpose, but they use it in context, lol.
They ALWAYS come home from their dad’s house with colorful, sailor like, make your mama blush language.
Omg this terrifies me, lol. My son is turning 1 on Sunday. I am with you on Sponge Bob, that show is the devil, haha.
I’m still in the “baby just started walking” bubble stage & I’m scared. LOL
My 2 year old can sing along with Wiz Khalifa and the song “Ass Back Home” by Gym Class Heroes. I can only take so much kiddie music in the car, and she picks up EVERYTHING on the radio. At least she doesn’t really know what any of it means.
We’ve dealt with this a few times. So far AIden realizes that when we tell him not to use a word then he doesn’t however, our problem is that one of my husband’s good friends doesn’t leave the trash talk at the door when he comes over to the house. I have to onstantly remind him that we have a child that repeats A LOT.
I can so totally relate to this!! Spongebob is not allowed in my house either. I am constantly amazed by how many people are surprised by this and ask me “why?”. My response is always – “Have you actually ever watched it and paid attention to what it’s teaching your children?”. It’s not a nice show at all. I hate that it always seems to be playing on the TVs in doctor’s office waiting rooms too. I mean really? Is there nothing better on??
It’s funny how kids pick up things so fast from others. My nieces will throw something out there and I’m all like, “Uh, WHERE did you hear that??!”
From another kid. Of course.
I’m sorry….I got a little giggly with the “butt” comments you wrote. “Look at my buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutt mommy!” cracked me up!
oh my geeze. I feel ya. Gavin was fairly easy, we told him there are words he can say when hes older but he cant use them now because they arent appropriate. HOWEVER- Grady has not been so user friendly in that respect. We have constant conversations about not saying potty words (as in, REAL potty words- stuff that happens IN the bathroom). I told them both that if they want to talk about that stuff, they can sit in the bathroom and do it. It has pretty much put an end to those kind of topics.
Gavin is 6 and I still dont allow him to watch sponge bob. or most of whats on cartoon network. and disney XD channel is blocked entirely. There are things that I dont think young kids need to watch. In fact- I dont think 7 year olds (most of them are rated y7) need to watch them either. im just not ok with it. There is plenty of other things that they do get to watch, so they certainly arent tv deprived