Is It Worth Playing This Swear Alphabet Game With Your Kids?
Fiddely_MomJess, the creator of TikTok and the mom of what her biography says is a “girl gang” made up of a seemingly endless number of blonde teens , posts videos of her and her daughters playing this “bad alphabet game.” Some people think they are funny and others say she is irresponsible.
What is Bad Word Alphabet Game?
In the video, Jess says she plays these games with her kids when they’re in a bad mood to help them feel better. She says it helps them “get rid of swearing” in a safe place at home or in the car rather than at school. Some hateful words, such as the n-word, are banned entirely, but many, including many words that could get an R rating in a movie, are fair game.
Jess also says he plays games with his kids to learn the latest swear words and also to see if the kids understand them. In this video , when one child uses the term wet dreams, Jess discovers that her child knows the term, but doesn’t know what it means, and says that they will clarify the meaning later. This conversation most likely would not have arisen without the game.
Should children be allowed to swear?
She understandably receives a lot of hate from commenters calling her a bad mom and saying her kids will be suspended or raised “wrong”. She addresses these comments directly, or sometimes with the help of her children , talking about how her children know the time and place for their game. The hope, she postulates , is that saying all the words at home with mom will take the mystery out of swearing and maybe even make them less funny. She is right?
“Research has shown that there is a significant correlation between parental swearing and children’s subsequent swearing,” says Dr. Bill Hudenko , Global Head of Mental Health at K Health . He says that when “parents explicitly or implicitly sanction that children are more likely to use vulgar language” so “use of this game is more likely to increase a child’s use of swear words rather than decrease them.”
However, you know better, don’t you? (We have our own guide on how to teach a child when to swear .) The problem with forbidding anything is that if it’s done secretly, it’s often done wrong, like a daughter who knew that “wet dreams » may be “swearing” (it is not), but did not know what it was. Children will be exposed to words at school or in the community, so finding ways to test your knowledge at home without them rolling their eyes at you can help.
Other Ways to Teach Kids Bad Words
If you have younger kids who may not have the impulsive control to keep this game away from the school playground, or if this game is not to your liking, there are other ways to make sure your kids get the right information when it comes. to “dirty” words.
Gudenko says, “It’s helpful to establish an open line of communication with your child so they can ask questions.” Try not to judge with words. When your child says or asks something, try to be curious rather than judgmental, even if you’re worried he’ll get in trouble for what he’ll say or think about what he said.
“If it’s a term or concept that the child is not developmentally ready to understand, consider converting the topic into child-friendly terms that are easier to understand,” Khudenko says. “This will help you set the stage for a more serious conversation when the child is ready, and also encourage the child to only use terms appropriate for the correct context.”
Any important conversation with children will have to be conducted several times, each time with increasing complexity. Teaching our children the limitations of language and its proper use is an important conversation to have over and over again as they grow and mature.