Bad Language

My toddler has developed a rather colorful vocabulary—so colorful, in fact, that his daycare provider commented upon it the last time I dropped him off. How can I encourage him to ditch the bad language.

It’s embarrassing to have a two year old with a vocabulary that could put some teenagers to shame—especially if other people are picking up on his bad language. Here are a few tips on encouraging your pint-sized potty mouth to clean up his act:

-Resist the temptation to overreact when your toddler uses inappropriate language. Whether you chuckle to yourself at your toddler’s supposedly “cute” cursing habit or you start screaming like the mother in A Christmas Story each time a swear word erupts from your child’s lips, your over-the-top reaction is sure to encourage your toddler to come back with another round of bad words. In most cases, if you ignore the bad language and encourage some more appropriate expressions, the swear words will eventually be eliminated from your son’s vocabulary. (Well, at least in theory.)

-Come up with some alternative phrases that have tremendous toddler appeal, but don’t officially qualify as swear words (e.g., “Shoot!” “Oh No!”), and then slowly but surely start to transplant them into your toddler’s vocabulary.

-Be honest with yourself about where Junior is picking up his bad language. If there’s any chance that Junior may have learned some of those choice words from you, you may want to consider cleaning up your act on the language front. The toddler years are a key time of language acquisition, so unless you want Junior to be building a vocabulary that would serve him well on the late-night comedy circuit, you may want to start developing a vocabulary that’s a little more toddler-friendly.