A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:help! my bf and i had a fight, we took it to room, 3 yr old overheard him say why u acting like a bitch? now she calls me bitch. how do i discipline her? she talks back to me, and it becomes a shouting match. i dont know what to do, cant hit her, time outs dont work and this is serious! bf feels bad, but she says it all the time now to me. friend told me wash her mouth with soap next time she says it, but i feel its borderline child abuse if i do that. explaining to her its wrong to say this to your parents or anyone is futile. its like talking to a dog who does not understand. like a brick wall. she is only 3, but i need to stop this right now. any advice on discipline and appropriate actions? thank you!!! Reply to this Question
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (7 March 2010): You've got two problems.Firstly, she loves the reaction and the fact that she can use that word and make you powerless. That's easy to fix. You set a boundary -- "being called bitch upsets me, and you are not allowed to call me words which upset me". Then you set the penalty for crossing the boundary, typically five minutes of silent sitting in an uninteresting place in your house (aka "the naughty chair"). When you hear the word, just calmly say "that word upset me" and lead them to the place. Don't get sucked into a discussion (because that is attention).For this strategy to work, the child has to be getting positive attention at other times. A bit of introspection will tell you if that is so.The second, more major, problem is your child's feeling of injustice because she is not allowed to say upsetting words, but your bf is. So you should expect some antagonism and accusations of injustice. Probably best to explain that adults make mistakes too, and that you and your BF has already sat on the chair.Your BF needs to come on board here. You need a new rule: no swearing (in the house, but that is unsaid). If he is present when the b-word is used he should be disappointed, and he should certainly be with the program of behaviour modification. It wouldn't hurt at all for him to explain directly to her that he used the word, that it hurt you, that he is sorry for that, and that it hurts him when he hears her say that to you, and that he would very much like it if she never said that word again.But really, you and/or your BF need to grow up. You can't sort out stuff by shouting. You've seen how it messes your kids up. There's plenty of websites on "conflict resolution" -- which is how to have an argument without hurting each other's feelings and it developing into a verbal brawl. For your kid's sake the two of you need to do some of this.Even when the two of you are under pressure, you need to be setting examples of the right way to handle things. Because when she is older and under pressure, that's what you'll want her to do. You might want to welcome your BF to the weightier side of step-parenthood.
A
female
reader, Miamine  +, writes (6 March 2010):
 mmmm... when my baby cousin (age 3) found her new favourite swear word would cause a reaction and make all adults go silent and stare at her, she thought it was fun and started to use it a lot.
But me and my family are a team, no point in rewarding her for bad behaviour. What we did is to ignore her, we didn't even tell her it was wrong. We ignored her, or tried to divert her attention to something that was much more fun. Worked like a charm, no point saying naughty words to adults who don't notice and don't care. At 3, she knows the word means something, but we didn't tell her what, and from our reaction she decided it wasn't important and quickly got bored.
3year olds want attention, and yes, sometimes they want to cause trouble and make as much noise as adults do. Try my approach, no attention for bad behaviour, that's the thing they hate more than anything in the world.
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female
reader, hijacked_dignity  +, writes (6 March 2010):
 I'd have to agree with the user below me. A light smack on the mouth ought to stop her from saying those words. It's more of a surprise than it is pain inducing, and when I was little, it definitely stopped me from using those words. I'm never for actually hurting a kid, but some behaviors are really unacceptable, and I have seen what happens when 'time outs' or 'talking to your three year old' work. And they don't work.
Kids will do whatever they can as long as they can get away with it. Washing your kid's mouth out with soap isn't abuse. You wash her with soap every day. It's not going to kill her. Now if you locked her up in a closet for two days, THAT would be abuse. Modern day parents tend to be so afraid of 'mentally harming' a child they don't even go about actually punishing them. Which is more mentally harmful in the long run when they grow up with no sense of discipline and accountability for their actions. Food for thought.
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reader, anonymous, writes (6 March 2010): The real advice I'd like to give you will not be appreciated by you or anyone here which is a quick smack. I've only had to do it once to each of my kids never again and I use that bad memory to control other naughty behaviour. Consequently, my teens have never been rude to me because they still remember the fright and shock from that smack. But seeing as its illegal, I'd advise you to take away a favourite toy everytime that word is said. Or take away ALL toys so she has nothing to play with. Or buy icecream for everyone except her. If she cries don't offer any comfort until she apologises. After she apologises then hug her and comfort her and tell her you know she won't say that word again. Disciplining your child is not abuse. What is abuse is allowing your husband to abuse you, especially in front of your daughter. My cousin after years of hearing his mother abused is now a 17 year old yob and moves with a hammer to attack old ladies. You have to teach your child to be respectful especially of you. When you teach them to get away with it now, they carry on into adulthood. So do all your disciplining now and don't show any guilt or apologise for it. The crying will stop; don't offer consolation unless she comes to you for it whereupon you tell her gently and lovingly not to do it again then return the favourite toy. You only need to do this 2 or 3 times and its done.
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male
reader, CaringGuy +, writes (6 March 2010):
Every time she swears, don't say anything. Just take her hand, take her to a corner of the room and sit her there. And don't let her come out. Say that you will not tolerate swearing and that she has to say sorry. Then leave her in the corner. Every time she comes out, put her back. Don't say anything. Eventually she will understand that every time she swears, she'll be put in the corner and left alone. And as Pink Topaz says, a little bit of embarrassment can go a long way.
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female
reader, pinktopaz +, writes (6 March 2010):
What I've noticed with my best friend who is a preschool teacher is to act like it's the end of the world when they do something wrong and it usually works. So if she calls you a bitch again, you or someone else basically has to embarrass her, usually put your hand to your chest or your mouth, gasp, then say, "Oh my gosh! I can't believe you call you mother such names! That is not nice, how would you like it if I called you mean names! That really hurts my feelings." Sounds cheesy but it works, especially if someone else does it to her in the same manner, but like " That's not nice! You shouldn't talk to your mom that way, she's my friend and you shouldn't talk to my friend that way because it hurts my feelings!" And be all dramatic about it. Then she's put on the spot and it will definitely keep her quiet, at least for the time being. Try it out and hopefully it will work at least temporarily. All I know though, is if I called my mother a bitch after being told not to repeatedly 3 years or not, I probably would have gotten slapped in the mouth...but whatever, it's your kid.
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reader, anonymous, writes (6 March 2010): Children sense assertiveness. Although I know everyone criticises parents but my take would be that if you sound like you mean it she would stop. When you had a shouting match with her...you were carrying all the emotional hurt that you felt when she called you by the first. So she is just not a child using bad language - which a parent can be assertive about. She is your daughter using a word her father used on you. You need to show that it does not matter to you personally, but she is not do say it regardless. Perhaps you do need to ignore it for now. Just get on with what you are doing and let her be. Don't let any other adults react to it either.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (6 March 2010): it's not abuse to yell at her over something important like this. be stern and make it seem like you mean business. do you really want your kid to keep talking to you like this from such an early age? my parents yelled at me over things like drawing on the furniture with crayons, swearing, not listening to their pleads to pick up my toys...and i am so glad that they actually had the balls to instill a strong message in me by being harsh when they had to be. there was no time out. there was no spanking unless i was literally putting my life in danger (roads and stove-tops). sometimes, you have to yell to be heard by a kid that won't listen otherwise. fear can be useful if not over-abused or over-indulged. just when it REALLY counts. yell at her tomorrow. be glad you did the day after that. dont' feel guilty if she cries. she needs to learn not to be so disrespectful, for her own sake.or if that's too harsh for you. set up a 'bitch jar'. every time she calls you 'bitch' take away from the jar. decrease it by one item in the jar a week. (say, you keep pennies in the jar or something). so week one, you have 5 or so pennies. week two 4 pennies...week three 3 pennies and so forth until you get to one penny. every time she calls you the B word, take a penny out. when she loses all of her pennies for the week, she doesn't get some kind of reward (a toy or an activity or whatever it is that she wants or loves). i haven't thought this one out completely yet. the idea is to teach her that the more she uses the B word, the less she is likely to attain what she wants. this approach seems too soft to me, but it might force her to really think about her choice of words, more than just react to pure fear in using the B word when she's fighting with you.
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reader, C. Grant +, writes (6 March 2010):
 Your child is reacting to the attention she gets when she uses that word.
Your making a big deal about your child's language is giving your child a huge dose of power. Stop making a fuss about it! Ignore it and it will go away. In the meantime, make sure that you're not taking your child into situations where you don't feel you can ignore it -- going to the zoo and having your 3 year old call you 'bitch' is offputting at best, embarrassing at worst.
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