My Question of the Day: Your second-grader gets suspended from school for saying something totally vulgar and inappropriate to his/her classmates within earshot of a teacher. You are livid about the suspension and about your child’s vulgar and inappropriate language. When you get your child home, and after you’ve calmed down a bit, you ask your child what on earth possessed him/her to say such a thing. He/she looks at your with a bit of confusion and says, “I heard you saying that to so-and-so on the phone. I didn’t know it was bad.” What do you do?

(this question was inspired by @JoshDamage; thanks)

My 2 Cents: I can’t hold my second-grader responsible for something he/she didn’t know was wrong, but I would sit down with him/her and explain why he/she was wrong and tell him/her what the consequences will be if he/she ever does it again.

Children are sponges. We forget that, or we think/say, “He/she doesn’t know what I’m talking about.” Children don’t have to know what you’re talking about to parrot your words. Even if they don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s still a good idea to refrain from saying anything around them that you don’t want them to repeat.

Better yet, we should probably refrain from saying anything, period, that we can’t say around our children. It couldn’t hurt.

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Take a few moments to check out the tweets from Twitter on this subject:

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Inkognegro my second grader knows EXACTLY what to say and what not to say. Hed get popped in the mouth for trying to play me.

LadyInfamous I don’t have any kids, but if I did and that happened to me I would say, “baby don’t talk like that at school, only around me.” is that bad? idk lol I would want my kids to express themselves I don’t want any stressed out children living with me lol

JoshDamage I give the child a pass and watch what I say around the child in the future. But I make sure they knew words like that ARE BAD.

jodercorrer It depends on what was said. I might explain that context is important. What is said at home, may not be what we say in public. If it was REALLY bad I would say I made a mistake & that he just copied me & I learned something & we would both do better.

Starfiire58 u apologize to ur child & explain to the school it was ur fault and beg 4 them to give ur child another chance.

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The commentary doesn’t have to end!

Please feel free to continue to add your comments below.

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