The language used by a few ten year olds had me stunned....

I remember learning most of my swear words hanging around my dad and his friends when I was young. Also all the rated R movies I was allowed to watch. The rest I picked up on the playground.

However, the difference between back then and now is my peers and I knew when to swear and when to keep our mouths shut. We would never dream of cursing in front of adults in public, especially our parents. Why? Simply, respect. Kids today don't have a healthy fear of adults and consequences if they get out of line because, well, there usually aren't any consequences anymore.

It's been a combination of things to get us to this point but mostly I point the finger at their parents. My wife and I never curse around our kids and always make it clear that curse words are for adults only and if we hear it coming from their mouths, they are in big trouble.

Meh. From everything I've seen things are a whole lot better now (for kids anyway). The kids treat each other better (but oddly enough have less respect for elders?) than they did when I was a kid (70s).

Go watch Bad News Bears (it hit the theater in 1976) if you haven't seen it in a while. I gotta say it's a surprisingly accurate snapshot of kids in the 70s (completely with kids talking racial slurs, swearing, sex talk, etc), and that was a movie for kids! The horror!

ps - Bad News Bears is still excellent. Also a great snapshot of how the older generation was medicating with alcohol heavily and dealing with failing relationships/marriages (which I remember clearly).

originally posted by: mamabeth
a reply to: Biigs

Children will always mimic what their parents' do or say
everything starts at home.

I used to curse like a trooper when I was a kid, never at home in front of my parents though. This was all learned from school/peers.

I remember kids being like this as far back as the 80's.. so I'm sure they've always been like this.

a reply to: Biigs

Looks like the anti-pc police are doing their jobs to me.

PS: Kids overuse swear words because they know they aren't allowed to say them. So it's a novelty thing.

whatever happened to boys will be boys?

a 10 yr old acting like a 10 yr old...

UNHEARD OF

a reply to: Lysergic

Tell me a ******* 'bout it.

Kinda depends. We may have used the language, but we didn't in front of adults because we knew it would get back to our parents and then there'd be hell to pay.

originally posted by: SaturnFX
they were 10
...
10!!!

and out away from the parents.

During my time as 10, a thousand years ago, we would use as many curse words as possible when out away from parents..which was really only about 8 words total (no internet to learn how to "enhance" the language).

I wouldn't blame the parents here..a kid goes to school and within a week he will know more curse words than exposed to his/her entire life before then..
But, I will blame the parents here for not exposing them early actually and explain to them why its gross to use the words just for fun..(makes them look stupid more than strong when used too much is a good one)..

My parents never talked to me about cursing, rarely did it, and would swat me if I did accidentally let one slip..so like anything denied..once you are out of the eye/earsight of the controllers, you express and experiment

Alternatively, we could just build a wall around New Jersey and that should fix the cursing problem

Absolutely. They are 10 year old boys. It's as if no one has ever seen any . They probably pick up things about terrorists from the news. As for swear words, they have always been purposefully used when away from parents and when kids do not THINK adults can hear, though their analysis of the sound level of their own voices is not yet developed fully.

My mother always told me to not use curse words in anger, as she was also very against saying you 'hate' anyone. She knew, especially as a teen, that I would swear, at some point, minutes after I walked out the door. She rarely swore, my father never did at visits with him, though I imagine he did when I wasn't there.

As an adult, I avoid curse words as much as possible, though some slip out if I am angry.

originally posted by: reldra
As an adult, I avoid curse words as much as possible, though some slip out if I am angry.

I think this is acceptable, esp if followed up with a request for forgivness for letting the frustration leak out in the form of foul launguage or a bit of yelling.

These little park monsters were saying things to hurt, unlike a bruse these attacks are felt painful for much longer


EDIT: i fully admit calling inanimate objects all sorts of naughty or rude things, but thats what happens in IT some times when things do what they are meant to, and then one unit refuses to play ball - a few curses whispered, getting louder as the likely causes diminish and you have to finally let out a gentle sigh and grab the phone to RMA the product/service. This of course all happens in the IT office out of ears reach for the rest of the company to hear and start to judge you as a rude or inconsiderate ape with a tainted vocabulary.

originally posted by: Biigs

originally posted by: reldra
As an adult, I avoid curse words as much as possible, though some slip out if I am angry.

I think this is acceptable, esp if followed up with a request for forgivness for letting the frustration leak out in the form of foul launguage or a bit of yelling.

These little park monsters were saying things to hurt, unlike a bruse these attacks are felt painful for much longer

True, saying they hope some other kid;s parents get blown up by terrorists is pretty evil. I would say part of that is picked up on the news. But, my daughter, though she is 18, if I heard her say such a thing...she would 'get the brush'. That would be me chasing her around attempting to hit her on the bottom with a brush. I would be angry, she would laugh. Then I would take every electronic device away from her. Then she would not be laughing.

In my personal experience, growing up in a blue collar suburb in Detroit, I noticed the time when kids my age at the time (around 9 or 10) started swearing. At that time the movie "Bad News Bears" came out, I even saw it at the theater, is when I noticed kids swearing all the time. Before that movie, kids weren't swearing on the playground that I ever heard, but after it came out, I started hearing it all the time. I even found it strange back when I saw that movie as a kid how adults thought is was so cute to see kids my age using fowl language up on the big screen. I can't stand to hear kids swear now that I'm an old fart, but I curse too in my everyday conversations, so I don't really care and ignore it.

Yeah i realise kids learn it at school and at home when daddy accidentally puts a shovel through his foot and yells a chain of really bad words etc.

Its the total lack of restraint thats being shown, okay two kids argue they start throwing insults at each other, but in a park with even younger kids playing around and stuff, my sister has a 1 year old kid, imagine he picked up on it and that was his first word or somthing. They just dont care or have any situational awareness.

I'll tell you this, if an adult talked to another adult like they were doing a the volume they were doing in a place of peace and play - the police would be called and both people arrested for somthing like "breach of the peace" or probably a bunch of other things.

Old enough to know a word offends but no knowledge on a setting for appropriate use, the only ones i could think would be joking, at a party with adult freinds possibly drunk for a little more lenience (weird how that works). Sadly the parents of these kids may not even know what sort of behaviour or arguments and how they handle themselves etc.

"With great power to insult, comes balance of the tightrope of even the vaguest clue of how and when its NOT extremely offensive to somone"

I wont act in a violent way toward a kid, but a ten year old blurting this kind of verbal abuse at a kid a few years older and hes going to get his ass whooped - and know ones going to really care.

Kids today know how to use an Iphone before they can even read or write.

Social media + impressionable young minds is a toxic mix.

Even though I was blaming the "Bad News Bears" for starting the epidemic of kids swearing, I should mention that there was still a measure in place to stop that practice by adults. It was called getting your mouth washed out with soap.

If I got caught swearing or mouthing off by my parents, I got a bar of soap crammed in my mouth to clean up my language. If bar soap wasn't available, there was liquid dish detergent. If it was bad enough, we got slapped across the face and/or swatted with a belt or shoe. That was the consequences for us as kids for swearing, practices that you don't hear about being used these days that started to disappear around the same time I noticed all my friends swearing.

originally posted by: jtrenthacker
I remember learning most of my swear words hanging around my dad and his friends when I was young. Also all the rated R movies I was allowed to watch. The rest I picked up on the playground.

However, the difference between back then and now is my peers and I knew when to swear and when to keep our mouths shut. We would never dream of cursing in front of adults in public, especially our parents. Why? Simply, respect. Kids today don't have a healthy fear of adults and consequences if they get out of line because, well, there usually aren't any consequences anymore.

It's been a combination of things to get us to this point but mostly I point the finger at their parents. My wife and I never curse around our kids and always make it clear that curse words are for adults only and if we hear it coming from their mouths, they are in big trouble.

I agree with that! I dont even say "turd" around my dad. But i do throw a nice "$#!1" or "#μ¿£" out of a nice story sometimes. Good times!