Bad language
I overheard my 11 year old son talking to his friend the other day and the language that came out of his mouth was appauling! He never speaks that roughly around me. Do I punish him for that or just pretend I didn’t hear it? Should I talk to him about that?
Pretend you didn’t hear it, it’s just your son flexing his muscles in front of his friends. As long as your son doesn’t do it in front of you then he clearly knows that it is not acceptable behaviour and is in no danger of it becoming a real habit. I endured my son going through that phase and he is now a respectable man, with a respectable job, and only lets out the occasional explicative (but then again, who doesn’t).
My first rule whenever it comes to my son is ask his dad about it! As a female I don’t understand half of my son’s behaviour and as his mother I definitely don’t like some of his behaviour, but when I talk to his dad and get a male perspective on it often I find out it’s an important part of being male and if you interfere with that you are putting your son at a disadvantage. My hubby is a great man, who did not go through many horrid phases as a teenager so I know that when I ask his opinion as to whether this is acceptable male behaviour that I can trust him. Really – mums should not know a lot of what their sons do!
I would really focus more on the subject matter and attitude in which such words were said then the words themselves. When my son was younger I overheard him saying some things I did not approve of but when I say the look in his face as he said it (he obviously did not know I was watching) I saw that he didn’t really mean a word of it, he was just saying it to go with the flow of his mates (who by the way didn’t mean it either). He was saying some rather racist things but there was no anger in his face to go with his words so as much as I did not agree with his words I knew in his heart he didn’t mean it. In the end my son stopped hanging out with a lot of those boys anyway. When I asked why he said they were jerks (and I knew he was referring to some of their opinions). As long as they know it is wrong and as long as you are still teaching them good values at home, your children will always come back to what they know is right.