Elijah was talking to Matt a couple of weeks ago, and complaining about how unfairly he is treated at school. Especially Noah. Noah is mean apparently and he gets him in trouble on PURPOSE.
"Oh?" asks Matt. "What did he do?"
"He tattles on me and tries to get me in TROUBLE!" said Elijah scathingly. "And now we AREN'T friends, ANYMORE!" (Elijah is a tad dramatic at times.)
"What did he tattle on you about?" asks Matt, not knowing what he was in for.
"He told the teacher that I was swearing!" he yells. "And I wasn't! But I got in trouble anyway!"
"What did you say, that made him tattle on you?" Matt inquires.
"I just said F#@*." Elijah scoffs.
"Um....what?" was Matt's stunned reply. "Hey, Kari. Come here!"
I innocently walk into the room.
"I just made it up. Noah says it is a bad word and I didn't know!" he says, looking a little nervous now. (I must look mean to him. But I really had no idea what they were talking about.)
"Elijah that is something you can NEVER say, it is a bad word," Matt explains.
"What word?" I ask, like a lamb to the slaughter.
"The F-word." Says Matt.
"F#@*." says Elijah at the same time.
"WHAT?!?!?!" I screech, handling the situation, oh so, perfectly. "Where on earth did you hear THAT????"
"I made it up, but my teacher was REALLY mad at me!" explains Elijah again. "But what does F#$* mean?"
"STOP SAYING IT!!!" I screech. "If you say it again, I am grounding you for a week from the Game Cube! As far as the meaning...well...it is a really vulgar way to say..sssssee.....woah...just a minute Elijah... Matt?"
Okay, so I'll stop here. I know, I know. I didn't handle it the best. But I just walked into my WORST parental nightmare. Not only is he saying the word, but he wants to know what it means. I don't think he is ready to hear what it means yet. (Really, you have to know Elijah. He isn't ready.)
Well, we changed the subject and said it was just a really bad word. The worst word. The MOTHER of all swear words. And he would only have far distant memories of the sun if he said it again.
So what would you have done? Realizing that you can plan the perfect answer now, but when you are really dealing with the situation a far different reaction happens.
FYI - It means: Fornication Under the Command of the King. But how was I going to explain Fornication to him? I really don't want to right now. So, I'm playing ostrich, until he is 8.
An Update
1 year ago
7 comments:
We had an FHE lesson this last week on the 10 commandments (after an innocent raid of a change drawer and escapades at a gumball machine). We went through each one briefly and paused at 'Thou shalt not steal'. Easy enough. 'Thou shalt not commit adultery'? Not so much.
wow...that is kinda funny
I don't have parenting advice other than there is an episode of Aurthur where they say swear words all mean "I want to hurt your feelings on purpose." Maybe you could tell Elijah that.
As far as the actual word.. It is just an old Anglo-Saxon word for.. well.. you know. But Latin words are now more appropriate in our culture, so all of the old words are swear-words... I think someone made up the acronym later.
Sorry, you know that I can never resist an opportunity to be the word nerd. (:
I looked up the meanings before I posted this and there are four possible sources of the word. One was the one you started and one was the one you said. There were a couple others. I just went with the one I liked the best! And I had heard it before.
We haven't gotten to those words yet, but Jackson has started taking the Lord's name in vain (thank you school friends), so we've had to tackle that one, but not your word. I probably would have done the same thing you did. I'm not sure I would want to tackle the definitions with my son yet...
Boy Kari I guess being in Utah you get them later. We got all those words last year in Kindergarten and now we have to talk about not drawing naughty pictures. Oh school friends are just great. The sad thing is that they really don't understand that they are bad and the kids at school do and get them in trouble. Somedays I wish I could keep them in bubbles.
Ethan did something similar, he was just "rhyming" words, and duck came up and he rhymed with that.....well, you know. I just stopped him and told him that it was the worst of all swear words. He hasn't said it again, but he does remember it.
as for Elijah wanting to know what it means, he doesn't really want to know, that was just a natural question. Just explain what swear words are, often times, they mean nothing, but give an "exclamation" onto a point.
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