How do we teach against bad language?

Answer:

The number one way to prevent bad language is for the parents and anyone else involved in the training of the child not to use bad language. Children imitate what they see and hear around them. That is their primary way of learning in their younger years. If they don't hear their parents using fouls words when they hit their thumb, chances are that they won't either. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6).

Sadly, at some point, a child is going to hear bad language, most often from television shows or from the neighborhood children. As soon as a parent hears his child use an inappropriate word, he needs to take the child aside and explain that there are some words that are bad and must not be said. Repeated reminders might be necessary and you might have to remove the source of bad language from the child's life. In my household, we don't watch a lot of television. Instead, we collected a large number of videos that we found to be wholesome and allowed the children to watch. We also installed a TV Guardian which monitors the closed captioning on a movie and turns off the sound whenever there is a bad word being said. We also recently installed a ClearPlay DVD player that edits out bad words and scenes from movies.

If reminders are not working, then you will need to make it costly for the child to use bad language. The use of foul language is typically a case when a person was not thinking. It is an impulsive act that is rarely done willfully or defiantly, so it is treated with discouragement.

For instance, "That was a bad word. We don't use bad language in this house. You will go to your room for the next 30 minutes." And then set a timer. This draws a connection between the use of bad language and the loss of social relations. For older kids, you can state that each bad word will cost the child a quarter, which then goes into a jar in the kitchen (later used for doing something fun). If the child doesn't have a quarter, then thirty cents is deducted from his next allowance. Spanking remains an option when a child purposely curses as an act of defiance because he knows it will upset you.