Should I Let My Kid Use Swear Words?

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Reena Ninan:

Episode 1 91. Should I let my kid use swear words? I had the most embarrassing carpool moment a couple of weeks ago

Dr. Lisa Damour:

To tell

Reena Ninan:

I am in my car and Spotify is running and it’s a group of girls coming from ballet and there is Taylor Swift, full blast, but my son had turned on our Spotify family share explicit lyrics on, so it is full on Taylor who we love, but I prefer without all of the curse words with it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:

Yeah, no, she uses the F word. She

Reena Ninan:

Absolutely does Taylor. But so anyway, we love her music and I could not figure out from my car how to turn it off. And apparently if you are in this position in the future, you’ve got to get off of that system and go and turn it off on your app or whatever. So

Dr. Lisa Damour:

You were corrupting all of the neighborhoods.

Reena Ninan:

I was corrupting all the neighborhood kids. I later spoke to their mothers about it and they’re like, oh, please don’t like whatever. Don’t worry about it. It’s the least of our worries at this point. But I will tell you it was uncomfortable and I didn’t like it. And that’s why I’m thrilled to read you this letter because I have been struggling with this all summer and I want your take on it. I have a very strong take and I love to share this with you. Dear Dr. Dior, my 10-year-old has an explosive personality and the mouth of a sailor. He both curses in general and curses at people, especially his siblings. I’m getting phone calls from school about this and I feel like I’m up against a brick wall. I’ve googled how to stop my kid from cursing and keeps seeing contradictory advice. Some say ignore it. Others say it’s verbal abuse and I must give them timeouts, which doesn’t work. In a perfect world, I’d have him in therapy, but a very contentious divorce and limited finances makes that extremely complicated. Can you help? Signed, struggling, mom. Okay, first off, why are boys doing this? Why is this? It feels like this is so important to them to listen to lyrics, to be able to curse.

Dr. Lisa Damour:

Okay, so let’s take this. Let’s, let’s tease two things apart. So why do kids like to curse and why is this kid curse? Oh, okay. So let’s start with this kid. There’s something right at the end of the letter that I think is really important that there’s a contentious divorce going on. There are limited resources, often contentious divorces can be quite ugly and painful. That’s what a contentious divorce almost always means. And it sounds like this kid is swearing at his siblings. The explosive personality piece. So why this kid is swearing is honestly, this sounds like a boy who is in a lot of emotional pain, who is very angry and upset and the swearing is part of that picture for him. And so his swearing to me feels different than the kind of swearing the kids like to do on the back of the bus swearing and feels part of something that needs to be handled very, very specifically.

And and I hate that this kid isn’t getting the support that he should have. I totally get it where this family feels strapped and they can’t make it happen. In the short term, the kinds of things that might make a difference, like one I wonder about a school counselor. Schools counseling systems are much better than they’ve ever been. I wonder if he could get some support at school. I wonder about the parent talking with him about how angry he is and that he can be angry and there’s lots of ways to be angry that are okay, but swearing at your siblings is not one of them. So I think his swearing finds itself in a special category where it’s not okay. It’s a sign of great pain and suffering and it’s causing pain and suffering. So for that kind of swearing, I think it’s really important that the kid get the support they need and we take very seriously that he’s in pain and causing pain

Reena Ninan:

In pain and causing pain. In general though, Lisa, I do feel like there’s a certain age where I can listen to these explicit lyrics. Now I’m old enough, I can use this word. Why do kids in general tend to do this?

Dr. Lisa Damour:

So I have a smile on my face because one of the things I love about teenagers is the fact that by their nature they need to do things that rub adults the wrong way. They need to push off against us. They need to cause friction.

Reena Ninan:

Why?

Dr. Lisa Damour:

And because they need to establish their independence. They need to move the culture forward. They cannot just fall in line and think we’re awesome all the time and love everything about us and everything we do. They have to establish their own view of the world and make it clear that they are their own people. And the way they do it is they do stuff we don’t like. And the smile on my face is the wonderful range of stuff the kids do that makes parents bananas. But that is really either entirely harmless or basically harmless. And so swearing and especially kids using naughty language on the back of the bus is in that category. It’s also stuff though, like teenagers listening to music their parents don’t like that maybe has explicit lyrics or I cared for a teenager who would wear this crazy colored lipstick that her mom, it was blue or green or whatever. And it looked kind of weird, but it was also annoyed the adult. And I think that that was what the kid had in mind and it was working quite well in that way. So for me, swearing, the kind of playful mess around swearing that kids do falls into that category. And you can see I have a very high tolerance for it,

But I don’t think you feel that way about it.

Reena Ninan:

No, I don’t. I just sort of like, it’s not really necessary. Take it out on the basketball court or something like that. I just sort of do you need to be doing this? But you think, is there a way to get kids to stop? Because this mom was saying in going back to this letter,

Were saying this is a little bit differently. You can see the anger and the frustration a little bit, but mom’s like, look, he’s a teen. I’m not going to put him in timeout. That doesn’t work. So what does work if you do want to change that behavior?

Dr. Lisa Damour:

Okay, so say you’re a parent and I think you’re a parent who’s like, do not swear. Do not swear. Certainly in front of me. And it sounds like what’s your rule with your kids? Do you your expectation

Reena Ninan:

You just don’t. You just don’t. But I realize that sometimes words slip out of my mouth. And so mom, see you do it. What? Yeah,

Dr. Lisa Damour:

But okay. But actually just to rest on that for a minute, Rena, so you’re like, okay, don’t swear. And then of course, every once in a while something comes out that you’re like, whoops. But when you swear, do you say, right, I shouldn’t have said that. Or do you say, I can say what I want. I’m an adult. You as kids cannot yet do that.

Reena Ninan:

How do you that? I try to be like, okay, yes, you’re right. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m just trying to do you really need to do it? And I think it’s probably the way I was growing with my parents, but my parents are from South India and the language we speak is Alam. So there’s a word that’s like, oh crap. It’s like, shh, shh. Like SHEH. So I’m like, ohh, shh. But sometimes I’m really saying something else and the kids are like, we know what you said. You weren’t speaking Alam when you were doing that. And I’m like, oh shit. So now the kids make fun of me and when something goes, they start to use that. And

Dr. Lisa Damour:

Good young teenagers call you on the carpet for your

Reena Ninan:

Hypocrisy. Yes, absolutely. You were the one who opened my eyes to that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:

They absolutely do. They

Reena Ninan:

Do.

Dr. Lisa Damour:

Okay, but you basically go with the idea that there’s not supposed to be swearing in your house when you do it, you sort of either take it right back or do it in another language. That’s right. And you don’t want them to do it. Okay.

Reena Ninan:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Damour:

So I think that it is a perfectly reasonable thing for families to say, we don’t want you swearing. And I think this is such a great topic in terms of it’s a place where reasonable parents will disagree.

Some parents will say, you know what? I consider it rude. I do not like it. I don’t do it. I don’t want my kids doing it. You’re not to do it. And if a kid does it, you’d be like, knock it off, cut it out. And it kind of sours the moment. And for a lot of kids, if otherwise you’re having a good time, souring the moment by letting a word fly is enough for them to be like, okay, I’m not going to do it again. I also, again, Rena, this is sort of in the grand scheme of having cared for a lot of teenagers for a long time. If that is what the fights at home are about with a teenager is that every once in a while a kid is dropping an F bomb, as we say here in Ohio, and the parent is reacting badly, and then the kid is a little bit chag grinned. If that is the shape of the friction while that kid’s in high school and there’s not more to it, they’re not smoking in their bedroom, they’re not sneaking out of their window. Teenagers need to find friction with adults. If this is where it’s at, I would say things are going great. So I see it in broad, having seen just how spicy teens can be. This one is not for me a problematic place to have friction arrive.

Now I take it, I have a different take on it. First of all, I really like to swear. I enjoy it at times and I’m going to come back to my research basis for why I enjoy it, because this is going to

Reena Ninan:

Be good. This is going to be good.

Dr. Lisa Damour:

And I actually don’t mind when my kids swear in the house. Really? As long as, yeah, I really,

Reena Ninan:

I’m really surprised. This is something I did not expect coming from you.

Dr. Lisa Damour:

No, I didn’t really think that you’d be okay with this. I minded they have to be above a certain age. I don’t know what the magic age was. I remember one of my daughters when she was, I thought too young used a word that at a swear word, okay. And this will tell you exactly how little control I sometimes have in my house. I said, you can’t say that. And she said, well, you say that. And I said, well, there are words you can hear and there are words you can say to which she said, I think that’s bs. What? This is truly your child, true child. And then I just laughed. I mean, I think I did then what I just did now, I just thought it was so funny that she had this really quick comeback, which is to say that approach got me nowhere to say there’s words, I can do it, but you can’t do

But once they get above a certain agent, I don’t know what that magic threshold is, but somehow early adolescence, I just don’t mind it. If it’s not done in with heat, you can’t swear at people. And that’s where this boy is struggling. But if they use it to discharge frustration or if they use it for colorful language in telling a story, they’re very clear. And I think I’ve made it clear. I’m like, you can’t do that outside the house, but in the house I’m

Reena Ninan:

Okay with it. You’re okay with it. Okay. I think it’s the bleeding outside of the house, which makes it so easy. Lisa, I want to pause and take a quick break on the other side of this break. I want to ask you though about when the cursing is really angry and mean-spirited, when should you address that? And also I want to continue this conversation because the two of us disagree on swearing, so I want to talk about that a little bit more. We’ll be right back. You’re listening to Ask Lisa, the Psychology of parenting. Welcome back to Ask Lisa, the psychology of parenting. We’re talking about cursing. Is it okay for your kids to be cursing and swearing? I say, no, just don’t do it. And Lisa has a different take. And you were walking us through that, Lisa, that take that. Sometimes it’s good because you’re creating friction. I want to go back to this letter writer, this parent who says that sometimes there’s anger and it’s directed towards siblings, which that’s where I think I worry about. When should you be concerned when the anger is and the swearing is directed at people? Is that ever okay?

Dr. Lisa Damour:

It’s never okay. And I think it’s never okay, no matter whose mouth it’s coming out of. I don’t think adults should swear at their kids. And I don’t think kids should swear at other people in an angry and hostile way.

Reena Ninan:

What’s the big deal if someone swears their kid or a kid swears at a sibling? Why is that so problematic?

Dr. Lisa Damour:

Isn’t that interesting? It’s just a word, like any other word. But it’s funny. I think this is where a linguist would have ways to help us think through. There are taboo words,

Swear words are taboo and more taboo in some families than others. And so then to use one just increases the intensity of the attack. Even if it’s just a string of letters, like every other word is a string of letters. There are words that we have all come to agreement carry more force than other words. And so I think if it’s used as an attack, then it’s a more forceful attack and we may be able to tolerate kids pushing back on each other and maybe even a little teasing. But once you use a certain word, it’s now crossed a line is taken to a different place. So I don’t think we should do it. I don’t think we should let our kids do it. And I think we can say you can be mad. You cannot swear at people. That is just going to be a family rule. And it gets to, it’s interesting, we now was thinking about, I let my kids do it in the house, but tell them not to do it outside of the house. One of the rationales for why my rule is a bad rule is that sometimes people will say, and this is fair, if you don’t want them using it outside the house,

You don’t want them to accidentally use it outside the house because they’re using it comfortably in the house. That’s right. And that is totally fair. And then you can, that same argument could hold, which is if you don’t want him using it in anger, well then they shouldn’t use it at all because then it might accidentally come out when they’re in anger and you want that kind of inhibition around the word to be more universal so they don’t accidentally use it outside the house and they don’t accidentally use it when they’re mad at somebody. That is an argument that I can totally see.

Reena Ninan:

This mom had asked about therapy saying, look, we’re just kind of strapped and can’t afford therapy, but really would you need therapy for cursing? When would you ever need therapy for cursing?

Dr. Lisa Damour:

Yeah, I think it wouldn’t be for the cursing. I think it would be for the pain. The pain that this kid I think is in and he’s telling us something that he is explosive and going after sibs and she’s getting calls from school. I mean, this kid is skywriting that he’s in a lot of pain. But I think the question you’re asking is so critical. I think sometimes we go after the behavior, it’s a disciplinary issue and we put kids in therapy to discipline them or get their behavior in line, and that’s just not how we want to be thinking about therapy. Therapy is to help understand what’s driving the behavior that’s so problematic and tend to the needs that are not being met, that are causing this problematic behavior, not just to punish the kid into stopping doing the thing we don’t want them to do.

Reena Ninan:

That’s an important distinction. What would you recommend for therapy options for this particular kid?

Dr. Lisa Damour:

So again, maybe school counselor is a possibility. I would check with the pediatrician. I understand that resources are a problem. Sometimes it’s economic resources, sometimes it’s logistical capacity, especially when there’s been a family disruption, getting a kid to a therapy appointment, somebody’s got to drive them and somebody’s got to sit there with them. And so there’s all sorts of things that can get in the way. I do wonder about checking with the pediatrician to see if there’s a clinician on their insurance who might be affordable. So I wouldn’t give up on getting this kid support by any means. I would see if there’s anything further that can be done letting us know, and he’s really letting us know that things don’t feel good.

Reena Ninan:

Yeah. You said something when we were sort of producing and prepping for this episode about this is a great topic because it’s sort of the foundation family foundations. I think it was the word you were talking about. There’s a beautiful way you put it. And I said, oh, you’re right. You can have rules, but they should be sort of that the kids know this is going to be part of our rules, this is part of our culture. Right.

Dr. Lisa Damour:

So I was thinking about swearing and why I wanted to take it up because it’s not the biggest deal thing that we’ve dealt with by any measure, but I do think it gets to these kind of principles that really matter in parenting. And I would say really one of the critical principles is predictability. So I was allowed to swear as a teenager and my mom likes to swear, and it was a non thing. It was a non-event in our household, and there may be no defensible logic to this. If I left a spoon in the sink, it was the end of the world. A dirty spoon in the sink was the end of the world. So you could easily make the case of dirty spoon in the sink is a much lighter crime than totally using the F word. As a teenager,

You can make that case, but what mattered is I knew exactly what I was going to get in trouble for. So I wasn’t going to get in trouble for swearing, but I was going to get in trouble for spoons in the sink. And those were consistent and predictable and expectable rules. And what really makes it hard on kids is if sometimes when you drop the F-bomb, your parent laughs. And sometimes when you do it in the exact same way, suddenly you’re grounded. That’s what we don’t want to see. There needs to be a sense of the kid knows what’s going to happen when they do X. There does not have to be a totally consistent logic to what happens when the kid does X. Kids need to be able to predict their parents. And I think so often when we talk about parenting, like it’s important to be consistent. I would flip it and say, it’s important for your kid to be able to predict you and predict your behavior because then they can make adjustments and work with and around your particular preferences.

Reena Ninan:

So on these family foundations, what’s your advice then on something like swearing, right? It comes up at some point. What would you advise parents on this?

Dr. Lisa Damour:

So I would advise parents to be predictable. Be predictable, and you don’t even have to be consistent. If you’re in a two-parent household, you can have one parent you can swear in front of and one parent you can’t swear in front of. It just has to be consistent. That to me is the most important thing. And then of course, you don’t swear at people, and if you feel strongly, which you very well may, you don’t swear outside the house, right? I mean, you can make all your rules. Go right ahead, Irina. I want to get back to the research basis for a while.

Reena Ninan:

Yes. Tell me. Swear.

Dr. Lisa Damour:

Yes.

Reena Ninan:

I can’t believe you actually. Of course, I can believe you’ve got research on this. Of course,

Dr. Lisa Damour:

Swearing helps relieve stress.

Reena Ninan:

Really?

Dr. Lisa Damour:

Yeah, it does. And I have to tell you the studies I love sometimes the methodology, the studies are so clever. Okay, so what these research studies do is they use something, I don’t know why we call it that. We call it the cold pressor task. I don’t get P-R-E-S-S-O-R. I don’t know why we call it that, which is basically we have people put their arm in ice water. And the thing about ice water is if you put your arm in it before too long, it actually becomes painful, but it’s not harmful.

And then we see how long they can tolerate it and we time them. And what’s really fun in these research studies, you can tell I just love this, is that in one condition we let people say words but not swear words. They can say fork or sock or whatever they want to say in the other condition. We let them just go full on with the swear words. People who go full on with the swear words can tolerate the cold longer. They can keep their arm in the painful, it reduces the stress and discomfort of being in the ice water and they can tolerate the pain more. So I indulge myself when I am stressed, I’ll let some words fly in the privacy of my office in talking to her because it reduces stress.

Reena Ninan:

I felt that. I felt that before now. Okay. It’s light bulb is going off in my head. I felt that this is why

Dr. Lisa Damour:

People swear often, and there’s even features of swear words that make them stress relieving, like the strong, the tongue that they have to have a particular kind of sound that makes them work the way they do.

Reena Ninan:

Wow, okay. You just blew my mind. I did not see that coming about cursing and swearing.

Dr. Lisa Damour:

Yeah, no, it’s got a place in our lives.

Reena Ninan:

No,

Dr. Lisa Damour:

I’m not going to say that. That’s the last word. And everybody gets to swear whenever they want. That’s up to families to make their decisions, but I just get such a kick out of that research study.

Reena Ninan:

Wow. Oh my gosh, that’s fascinating. Okay. Whole new perspective on cursing that I never thought I’d

Dr. Lisa Damour:

Have. Well, there’s also one other, let’s just throw this in. There are regional differences on this, and I will tell you where I live in Ohio, adults don’t swear in one another’s company. But where I grew up in Colorado, adults did, and I remember sort of learning that when I moved here almost 25 years ago, that I remember a kind of raising eyebrows where if in the company of other adults, I casually used a swear word that was seen as untoward. I’ve adjusted to it. I make my choices and in public settings in my community, I don’t swear. I just know that that is not done in our area. But when I go home to Denver, I can switch into what the conventions are there.

Reena Ninan:

That’s awesome. Okay. You blew my mind. This was not the conversation I thought we were going to have, but wow, you came with research

Dr. Lisa Damour:

Too. Are you going to let yourself swear some more if you

Reena Ninan:

Want to? Yes. I am going to let myself swear some more. Probably not around my children, but now I get it. I get it. Yeah. I think so much of it is how you were raised too, right? My mom just hated curse, just could not, it just drove her nuts. But I don’t think that’s how most of the world operates, but

Dr. Lisa Damour:

It’s such a nice example of a place where reasonable people will disagree. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And you also got to know your kid and how impulsive they are and how able they are to, if you allow swearing in your home, how much confidence you have that they’ve got good breaks and are not going to swear outside of the house. So even within the old family, one family, I could see adopting a no swearing rule because one kid really needs it, the other kids, but one kid does. So you got to make a blanket rule. I could see that too.

Reena Ninan:

I love that also that you said one size doesn’t always fit all for a lot of these things we’ve talked about before in previous podcasts. So Lisa, what do you have for us for parenting to go?

Dr. Lisa Damour:

Well, I want to get back to raunchy lyrics and new Taylor

Reena Ninan:

Swift and your son switching it over to explicit. Love her. I do love her.

Dr. Lisa Damour:

Okay, you’re not surprised to hear this. I have a pretty high tolerance for kids listening to inappropriate lyrics. I don’t love misogynistic, hateful, violent stuff, but Taylor and her F-bombs, I have a pretty high tolerance for it. And a reason for that is that one of the ways I watch teenagers rub adults the wrong way is by standing near the fire but not being in the fire listening to stuff that’s kind of inappropriate, watching shows that can be a little bit spicy. That’s sometimes how teenagers get the gratification they need of feeling like they’re not being a total goody two shoes conforming in every way is by engaging media that has some stuff that they know their parents would not love. Of course, it can quickly cross a line into stuff that is really not okay or overwhelming or stuff our kids should not be exposed to. But I have seen a lot of teenagers absolutely toe the line all the way through adolescence and get the gratification for rubbing adults the wrong way they needed by listening to music that their folks were not into.

Reena Ninan:

Well, I’m grateful Now. Should I just not be weird about it when Taylor was cursing in my car? Just roll with it and don’t make such a big deal because that’s been the advice for my kids mom, you’re making it weirder than it needs to be.

Dr. Lisa Damour:

There’s really no way to get this wrong, Rena. You can either be like, you know what? Taylor’s Taylor, she can do what she wants. You guys aren’t Taylor yet. Or you can say, I feel really strongly about swearing, and I really wish she weren’t doing it. And luckily she publishes non explicit forms of her music. These are both totally acceptable responses. There’s wonderful variety. There’s so many ways to get it right as a parent, and I think this is such a great example of just

Reena Ninan:

That. Well, I’m so grateful that you also shared all this research on how cursing can relieve stress and walking us through that because next week in the US we are having elections for a new president of the United States, and so we were trying to figure out what would be a good episode, and we thought belonging might be a great topic. So we’re going to have a special guest you hope you tune in next week for our episode on Belonging. I’ll see you then. I’ll see you next week. Thanks for joining us. Be sure to subscribe to the Ask Lisa podcast so you get the episodes just as soon as they drop, and send us your questions to ask [email protected]. And now a word from our lawyers. The advice provided on this podcast is not constitute or serve as a substitute for professional psychological treatment, therapy, or other types of professional advice or intervention. If you have concerns about your child’s wellbeing, consult a physician or mental health professional. If you’re looking for additional resources, check out Lisa’s website at dr lisa de moore.com.