The F-Word

I hate the F-Word so much that whenever it slips out of one of my children’s mouths, one of them will immediately run to me to report that one of their siblings, ages 17, 13, 8 or 4, uttered the forbidden word.

The F-Word I’m referring to is not what you think.  I’m talking about the F-Word as in F-A-R-T.

The reason I’m bringing this up today is because I fear that popular culture, social media and even our schools have normalized it it for kids to talk and act more coarse or vulgar than ever before.   I think kids stop being kids when they curse or speak in gross terms and you know exactly what I mean.  Children who curse or are vulgar in their expressions are more often than not crossing into adult life patterns that are jarring and perhaps even dangerous.

From the time each of my kids were able to speak, I raised the bar high in my household so that even the word Fart was strictly prohibited.

Years ago I wrote about the initial, comical reason why I asked my kids to use an alternative word to describe farting (see that story HERE).  Today I can tell you that setting boundaries around the use of words like fart, boogers and poop have had a positive impact because my children don’t even come close to cursing.

As parents, I often hear us lamenting how our children are out of control but it all starts home and it starts in the mouth.  If you want to prevent your young children from growing up too soon and you want to cultivate a domestic culture that is verbally clean, set the F-Word standard in your home and be consistent about enforcing it.  Your kids may laugh at you and some people may even think you’re silly but trust me.  The F-Word trick works.