Keen young minds soak up everything, even the S-bomb

YOUNG children’s brains are like sponges, soaking up the language, written words, numbers, sights and sounds all around them.

To be in the presence of an eager young mind is like watching a sponge being moved quickly over spilled milk, sopping everything up and then, when squeezed, spilling it all back out again quicker than it went in.

But, just like sponges, children’s brains have no filter and absorb the bad as well as the good.

So as well as being able to spout incredible facts about carnivorous dinosaurs and sharks at the drop of a hat, Luke now also drops a swear word.

It’s not the F-bomb, so I’m grateful for small mercies, but another popular word for poo. I like to think of it as the S-bomb.

It just came out of his mouth one day about a week ago. We don’t know where it’s come from – possibly the playground but we’ve no evidence to back this up – and it just keeps on coming.

He’s been told in no uncertain terms that while he thinks it’s funny, we do not and he has to stop straight away.

But he hasn’t. It just keeps on coming no matter what we do.

I suppose it’s possible at this point that he’s just saying it because of the big reaction it gets from us, which he also thinks is funny.

The logical response to this would be to stop reacting and, hopefully, stop the S-bomb in its tracks. But it feels totally wrong to just ignore the fact that we’ve got a sweary five-year-old and not try to correct him.

As a mum, I don’t need much excuse to worry so this latest linguistic development has left me extremely concerned about what kind of parent I am. After all, what kind of mother has a sweary five-year-old?

I don’t believe that myself or my husband have used the word in front of him but he’s discovered it “on our watch”.

As parents our aim is to shield him from as much “bad stuff” as we can: we control his use of the internet, we ensure the programmes he watches on TV are appropriate, and we even turn the news off if he comes into the room when we are watching because we don’t want him to see pictures of children in distress in war-torn cities.

And yet, on this score, we have failed. Will he be swearing like a sailor on shore leave by the time he’s six?

Feeling terrible and like the only parent this has ever happened to, I searched the internet for answers.

Turns out this latest addition to his vocabulary is hardly unique and might actually be a good thing.

A little while back researchers from Marist College in New York studied swearing and found that, contrary to popular belief, people who swear a lot might actually be more intelligent. The researchers said that, far from being a sign of deficiency, swearing is an indicator of healthy verbal ability as the user must understand the taboo word’s “general expressive content as well as nuanced distinctions” in order to use the slur effectively. I hardly think Luke is putting that much thought into it but it’s worth keeping that piece of research in my back pocket in case I’m called into the head teacher’s office.

I also won’t take the study as the green light to start teaching him more curse words but I’m sure it’ll be a comfort when other expletives follow.

Also while scouring the internet, I found an article from a publication by the American Association of Psychological Science which suggested that swearing develops in the same way as other vocabulary.

The authors also claim that by the time a child starts school they know 30 to 40 swear words, which is so implausibly high that I dropped my own F-bomb when I read it. Thankfully, Luke wasn’t around to hear it.

But whether or not it’s normal or an indication of verbal dexterity it still leaves me feeling awful when he says it if for no other reason than it’s yet another indication that my baby is not a baby any more.