aren't they too young for this?

[miss_swamp]

One of my earliest memory clips is around age 4. I was with my dad in the hardware store. Kids at my preschool had been throwing around the term "dog doo." I had a guess what it meant, but I wasn't sure and I wasn't about to ask anyone. So as Dad was looking at whatever-it-was, I turned to him, said, "You're dog doo!" and ran to the next aisle over. He followed me and calmly asked if I knew what that meant, what I thought it meant, where I'd heard it, etc. I wasn't in trouble, but he told me not to use words I didn't understand. I don't remember the exact content of the lecture, but it was certainly not the last one I ever got.

This afternoon we were all goofing around singing alphabet songs and stuff, when Drew came out with, "Mom, you are a fag." I thought I'd mis-heard until he said it again: "You are a fag."

Okay. That one, he did not get from us. It's way, WAY worse than dog doo, but also more complex. And 2.75 is a lot younger than 4. He was clearly watching me to see how I'd react.

"What did you say?"
"Nothing. Let's make the popcorn, Mom."
"Did you say 'fag'?"
"Umyeah"
"Where did you hear that?"
"You said it."
"Nope, I don't say that. That's even meaner than 'fuck.' Who did you hear say it?"
"Daddy said it. Can we make popcorn now?"

Eventually he told me he'd heard it from the nanny's older (13-year-old) daughter, which I can believe. I tried to explain in simple terms: "It's a word that really hurts people's feelings, especially [a whole bunch of our friends]. Okay?"

"Okay."

And then we made popcorn.

The nanny will be back on Friday. Watch out.

Comments

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

Wow. Yeah, that kid's going to need a talking-to. Ugh.

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

Holy crap. That is a land mine. You handle that sort of stuff with such grace. The worst we're dealing with right now is a whole load of "I hate you, I hate X, I hate Y". I'm not really sure what to do about it. We don't use that word around here, so I'm guessing he got it from day care? I'm hoping that a minor 'you don't hate papa' or ignoring it or 'wow, you sound angry' will do the trick and he'll move on.

But yeah, can't ignore fag.

[nimnod.livejournal.com]

Zoe's strangely good with identifying her own emotions that way. If she's saying grumpy stuff, for example, and I say "Are you all grumpy?", she'll say "Yes!" and i'll say "Ok, we're all grumpy sometimes" and that seems to diffuse it a lot. I'm astonished at that to be honest given how grown up it seems when so much else she does is just not. I'm interested to know whether the 'wow you sound angry" thing will work for you. Apparently acknowledging their feelings as valid is supposed to be good? Mirroring or something?

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

We do A LOT with feelings. Bennett will pretend to be angry sometimes, and sometimes he's just angry. If he tries to lash out we direct him to the sofa or a bed. Sometimes we'll find him hitting a bed and he'll say 'I'm getting my anger out!' It's very helpful when he can tell us how he's feeling! For all of us.

[nimnod.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's a good idea.

[nimnod.livejournal.com]

That's horrible. Although i'm impressed he admitted it. Zoe is in a phase where if she does something bad and you say did you do x, she'll say "No" in this little innocent voice where the word rises like a question at the end. it's massively frustrating. i'm trying to teach her to tlel the truth by not punishing her for stuff she does when she tells me the truth but even that doesn't seem to work yet... =/

[miss-swamp.livejournal.com]

Oh, Bobby would have denied it until the end of time. He's behind Drew in most ways, lately.

[keypike.livejournal.com]

Wow, my heart just stopped a bit when I read that.

You handled it so well. I probably would have been so gobsmacked I wouldn't have known what to say.

[amiable-lyons.livejournal.com]

Oh HELL, no.

[caraeileen.livejournal.com]

I had a similar experience when I was little (5 or 6? I can't remember). I was playing with my dad and we were calling each other silly names through the sliding glass door. It was all fun until I called him a "fucking asshole." O_O My dad did not deal with it nearly as well as you did with Drew. Of course, I had heard it from him. I didn't even know what it meant and until that moment I didn't know it was a bad thing to say. Lesson learned.