Q&A: toilet talk

Tiel writes:

"My question is about 'toilet talk'. I have  an almost 4 year old and since starting kindy and I think with the influence of another little charming friend at family care, his language has gone down the toilet so to speak. He isn't swearing. He says things like. 'poo poo dog', 'smelly face'  etc etc...you get the gist.  Some things are quite creative, like 'radio monster' and  my favourite..'you're a mustard pickle!' But on the whole it is driving me insane. I know that a lot of children do this, but WHEN IS IT LIKELY TO STOP???? Any suggestions on how to approach it. I've tried talking to him about 'naughty words', even ignoring him, but he thinks it is all very funny."

Well, in all honesty, it is pretty funny. "Mustard pickle," especially. But I feel your frustration, as we were in this exact situation after a few weeks of preschool last year, and it was driving me off the deep end. Truly, I thought I was going to gouge out my eardrums rather than listen to any more fart and poop talk and random word string insults.

My son's teachers had a policy that we continued at home about "bathroom talk" (the effluent-related words and insults), which was that you could say those words all you wanted to, but you could only say them in the actual bathroom. It seemed to work fine for them at school, but was a constant battle at home. (It was truly hilarious, though, when El Chico would run to the bathroom and I'd expect to hear him lifting the toilet seat to pee, but instead I'd hear him shrieking "Poop! Farts! Doodoohead!")

Meira and her husband used reverse psychology to get their older son to stop with the bathroom talk at that stage by taking his favorite potty words and setting them to a tune, and then singing them loudly and with gusto for days until he got tired of them and stopped. (Because anything will become instantly uncool if your parents are doing it.) You can see why this appealed to my imagination, so we tried this method. I don't know if it was the singing of the potty words that did it (we kind of did a fugue style in harmony), but El Chico finally stopped with the effluent-related words. He kept up the random-strings-of-words-as-insults for a few more weeks, but then that petered out, too.

So you can try this stuff (and I'm sure someone else will have suggestions of other things to try), or you can buy a big roll of duct tape and tape his mouth shut get some earplugs so you don't have to listen to it anymore wait it out. He and the other kids in his class should move on to the next thing in a month or two. It will probably be pretending to shoot each other, or dressing in capes and being superheroes.

Hang in there.

Comments

[Lisa C.]

Ummm... can we get a recording of the potty mouth fugue? I think I would pay good money to hear that.

[Caroline]

Holy Mustard Pickle, Lisa! That's what I wanted to know!

[Kay]

My kid (4 on next Monday) is doing BOTH - yucky words WHILE pretending to shoot me b/c I'm a "bad guy".

ACK!

[Tiel S-K]

Thanks for this. I like the duct tape option the best! But I will try the first one you suggested and send him into the bathroom. We do threaten them with going out the the where we keep the rubbish bin. But it is a bit of a hike. This theory worked wonders when both my so called angels went through a spitting stage. We have small frangipani tree in the front yard and if they spat, come night or day they were placed in front of the tree.We told them that they could only spit there.
It worked. They hated going out to that tree.

So if the bathroom doesn't work, I guess I'll try the reverse psychology/singing songs approach, and hope that it doesn't have the opposite affect.

[beth]

I'm not sure exactly how much use this is, but what stopped my brother was Santa Claus. Not the threat that Santa wouldn't come, but Santa himself. The Junior League in our town used to get someone to play Santa, and you could get him to make a house visit to your kids. One year Santa came and asked us if we'd been good, and when we said yes he asked me, "And do you always eat your lasagna?" (we'd had it for dinner that night and I hated lasagna) and then asked my brother about his potty mouth. Seeing that Santa "knew" without my parents saying anything did wonders to stop it.

Like I said, that's probably not that helpful - but perhaps there's a nearly-as-influential person in your life who might help?

[Tiel S-K]

what a lovely story..now that's go me thinking.

thanks

[Moxie]

Aieee! The Santa Claus story is hilarious, Beth. I wonder if your brother has spent any time with a therapist on Santa Claus issues.:)

[themommyoftwopeters]

I have a 3.5 year old daughter, Ariana and a 19 month old son, Blaine. Ariana has mastered the going pee in the potty but refuses to poo but only in her panties. I dont yell at her but try and promote that "everyone" (nana, papa...etc.)goes poo in the potty. Blaine comes in from time to time to see what she's doing on the potty. She doesnt mind that at all. She is actually happy to see him witness her being a big girl. I'm not sure what to do about this. I have only 10 pairs on panties and they last a day. Please any advice would be great!

[Auntie Leanne]

My nephew has started saying naughty words - adult ones like B**ch and s**t. I try so hard not to swear in front of the little tyke but i know he picks it up from his mum n dad (my brother), i have told them till i am blue in the face to watch their language but they won't listen....recently i learnt that his gran on his mums side has been teaching him how to give the V sign!!!
how do i inform my nephew that those words n gestures are wrong and naughty? when i shake my head and say no - that's naugty....he just shakes his head back at me...i applaud him, jump about like a mad woman and clap my hands when he says a word that isn't rude/naughty.
I don't have kids but i have babysat for many years - i don't feel it is right that a kid that young should be using those sorts of words/gestures....and i'm 24..anywho advice would be greatly appreciated!!

[shauna]

I have the same problem, mine swears and he is 2 1/2. People's reactions around are to either tell me off or laugh..Im frusterated!!

[pass drug testing]

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