The Invasion of the Mini-Teens

[amykhar]

On weekends, the girls like to go to a friend's house that is a bit out of their allowed play-range. If the weather is nice, we let them go – but the rule is they have to call when they get there and check in.


Yesterday, the girls went immediately after lunch, while I was still working in the kitchen. With the dishwater running, I never heard the phone ring. At first, nobody else did either. This resulted in a lengthy, exasperated phone message from the seven-year-old. After which, I had to have a conversation with her on the inappropriateness of the word 'frickin'.


And, this is one of the trials of having teens and little ones at the same time. I never had these kinds of language or attitude problems when the oldest two were small. Yes, each of the oldest tried a naughty word out for size, but quickly dropped the word from their vocabularies when they saw mom and dad weren't amused.


For now, my main concern is teaching the little ones that some words are disrespectful when used around grownups. If I can keep them from using their more 'mature' vocabulary at school or around adults, I'll consider the battle won.


Of course, it's not going to be easy when my own dear husband rolls on the floor laughing when he gets a phone message from his daughter telling him to quit being such a couch potato and to answer the frickin' phone already.


I swear, sometimes parents are their own worst enemies.

[hadassahchana[$]]

Ack- I replied to this earlier, but I have gone missing.

Anyway, I was going to say that if you win this battle, let me see your playbook. We're having the same problems here with #4. As with you, it help if I could manage not to laugh even within earshot of the little imp.



Cindy

[theworm[$]]

Amy's girls, meet Cindy's boys.

[brian_igo]

The kids use of "friggin" is a problem? I remember the story about the baby using her daddy's favorite word - and Kiki muttering "fucking idiot" under her breath at the baby. Frigging would be an improvement. :lol:

[thinkerlady[$]]

Amy you crack me up.

I can just see this happening!!!!! I guess I'd be happy it is friggin that they are saying. I have heard worse from much younger kids.

I don't have an answer except when our kids experimented with language--I tried to ignore it until they were old enough to understand it was inappropriate. You might want to give them a word to substitue-- I remember telling Teddy to use the first Vegetable that came to mind. Now that was pretty funny..........

[mrisch[$]]

Granted, my boy doesn't talk yet but my goal is to teach him not to use that language in public. That's the best I can hope for.

[lynnzop[$]]

I thought you had paid a visit to my house from the title of the thread...I currently have 4 pre-teen boys in my living room "dueling". I have no idea what they are doing, but they sure seem to.

There were all kinds of giggles when one of them was saying the mermaid monster was cute

[jgibson2[$]]

Since I have adult children (22 & 24) and a 10 year old, we've been dealing with the language thing for a while. Fortunately, the older 2 are mostly pretty restrained when they're not driving. Also I'm exceptionally lucky that my youngest really does understand about inappropriate use of language. Restricting his television viewing for several years helped move that along. Once he grasped the fact that he could not watch certain cartoon shows (Simpsons) if he spoke like the characters, we've had very few language issues.

[pippadaisy[$]]

My kids know that there are words okay for grown-ups and not kids and that, unfortunately, Trucker-Mouthed Mommy often forgets that she shouldn't use those words around kids.

Still cracking up at "frickin" because at that age, my mouth got soaped for saying "Bull roar."