Kids are dropping the N-Word

@justasimpleservant74 Big difference in my opinion between a father-son interaction that's jovial and a sibling relationship that flares tempers and is 50/50 to end in an episode of shoving buddies. Glad you guys have a good relationship. I long for the day my 5yo starts to roll with the punches and doesn't lose it over his concept of "fairness."
 
@nathanstrong You teach respect by teaching respect, not by banning random words.

You've made it impossible to say "a rabbit was killed by a car" but perfectly possible to say "I'm going to cut your head off and poop down your neck hole", and I think it should be entirely clear which of those are ok to say and which aren't.

Ban unkindness and threats; don't ban (non-profanity) words.
 
@nathanstrong Sorry, you know your kids better than I do. I'll just say that my personal approach for my kids has been to focus on why things like "going to kill him" are offensive as a phrase because of what that means and how that makes people feel. I don't single out specific words as being the problem because I think that leads to them just using slightly different words to achieve the same meaning. Maybe that wouldn't work for your kids though, I don't know.

Regardless though, I think "noob" is a pretty harmless standalone word, so putting that one on the ban list if you prefer the banned words approach seems excessive unless you also plan on banning a lot of other relatively harmless standalone words.
 
@nathanstrong This sounds awfully convoluted and like it teaches kids to evade the thing that will get them in trouble, not identifying why it's a problem and to not use it.

You'd also hate (oops, sorry) strongly dislike the language in our household.
 
@nathanstrong I see your intention, but i do not agree. You should be teaching emotional regulation and impulse control, not word substitution.

If your 5yo says i am going to k-word you, how is that different than him saying he wants to kill you? Same for all your other -word substitutions.

For example, if my daughter were to call someone/something stupid, i would stop her and correct her and explain that they are not stupid and explain. Not tell her to substitute a different word. (please don't say you'd do both, you are obviously hung up on language more than impulse control if your 7yo is online gaming)
 
@nathanstrong No idea why you're downvoted so heavily. Even if these other fathers are okay with letting their kids insult each other, they certainly don't have any proof that their way is superior to yours in getting kids to practice a baseline level of respect. Getting them to genuinely appreciate their sibling can take years, in the meantime it can certainly be worthwhile to stop them from yelling insults at each other.

Obviously if they just keep jumping from one insult to another it's not actually instilling respect, but there is some value in them calling kids in school a noodle-head vs saying they'll kill them in their sleep.
 
@kesh77 Thanks, I'm a bit surprised, but not really worried. People are acting like it's Fahrenheit 451 here. I'm pushing the kids not to say they're going to kill each other or that another one (or Mommy or Daddy) is stupid. Kill a mosquito? Fine. This game is stupid? Not too bad. I hate you and I'm going to kill you? Sorry, no 1st Amendment for that.

I'm reading my 7 year old A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I edit "Jewtown" to "Place where Jewish people live." I edit "Mick" to Irishman. I edit "sheeny" to bad name. I feel bad about none of it.

The issue is that the kid who is called stupid, or is told that someone hates them or is threatened with killing feels bad. They feel real bad. Often it escalates to something physical. I saw the potential for newb to escalate like some of the other words. I tried to shut it down. It went in a completely unintended direction.

The 5 year old is in therapy. We work daily with him on trying to frame what he's saying or doing in the context of how he would feel if it was done to him. He understands his temper better now, but when he is heated "his mouth gets ahead of his brain." Making some words verboten has worked. The kids don't say as hurtful things and my wife and I do differentiate between the verb with object, the verb without object and the adjective/noun forms of stupid.
 
@nathanstrong I figured there was more to the story. That's why I try to withhold judgement unless someone is doing something obviously harmful, which you aren't. Obviously, you're going to do what you feel is necessary no matter what the Internet thinks, but I just wanted to tell you you aren't crazy and this should be a discussion and not a pile-on.

I agree with some other posters here, that you should consider disabling multiplayer or at least chat. As an older black gamer, I still usually disable chat because of the frequency of the actual n-word. Being Black, Latina, and a girl, my daughter is only going to game online in highly moderated spaces

One other suggestion is that you may want to record something time-stamped asking your kids to explain what they think the n-word is. I know if my daughter came home from school and said somebody said she was the n-word, I would have trouble believing that it meant something else unless some kind of proof existed.

As an aside, me and my siblings weren't allowed to call each other stupid or other insults. I'm the youngest and approaching 40, and we still are very close and have never had a fight where we insult each other. Insults are still at the bottom of my toolbox when I disagree with anyone, even online. Me and my wife of 8 years also only argue with love and zero insults. I'm not special or anything, but I think you can have a long lasting effect on your kids by teaching them self control even when they're mad.
 
@jme602 7 year old is playing (5 year old does every now and then) single player peaceful mode.

I like seeing what she can build and I make her sound the words out. No multiplayer.
 
@steve77 YouTube is worse, because even if you set it up for only kid 'safe' mode, there's still straight trash videos hidden down kid YouTube. Gives a false sense of security, where most people know online gaming isn't safe at all.
 
Back
Top