At one of our class Parent Ed potlucks, I heard myself answer a question about kids’ use of shocking or “bad” words  by agreeing that we can mostly just not feed it by giving it a big reaction, and just let it fade out. Alternately, if testing persists, I may say something like, “Oh yeah, grownups say that a lot, don’t they?”, which usually wraps it up. Then I added that the use of slurs, like “stupid” are different for me: for these, I said, I stop the conversation and tell kids that that’s not a word we can say at Cottage (or in my family) because it’s a word for hurting people’s feelings, and that’s not allowed. 

And then the next day at school, I heard a small group of friends in Rainforest say “dumb” and “stupid”, as well as “what the hell” and “shut up”. And I observed myself, and I have an update to what I claimed at the Parent Ed. I saw that I actually didn’t interrupt that conversation in the moment and tell people the rule about not using those words, although I have done that many times. But in this case, there were these children saying most of these words in character, to another character, and they were all wrapped up in their game, egging each other on to skip the snack and claim they weren’t hungry in order to keep playing. 

I set a boundary in my quiet voice, and told them they didn't have to eat but that we would all be going to the patio for snacktime. I was considering what else I had heard. I kept listening. I also heard “can you please stop talking” and “let me talk!” a number of times, breaking character. And I realized that my theoretical plan of interrupting language I object to us using at school was contingent on kids being in a place to listen to me. The conditions had to be right, or they wouldn’t get the gravity of my message. They were in the middle of something, with their peers, and it would have put them in the position of having to lose face in front of their cool friends to listen to me. That would have been disrespectful of me, in my opinion, and equally important, doomed to failure. 

Sometimes it works best to interrupt just as something is taking place– the equivalent of grabbing their hand to prevent them running off in a busy parking lot. And sometimes it’s far more effective to wait for a quiet moment, and circle back. 

I did circle back, when I heard “dumb” again. I came close, low, and almost whispering. I said, “Hey, excuse me, but I heard you say the word ‘dumb’, and I wanted to ask you not to use that word at school because it can hurt people’s feelings. I know that you weren’t saying it about anyone here; it’s just the rule at school”. They asked me if the rule was just for them and I told them it was for everyone (one person was saying these words quite a lot; the others were floating one occasionally). And the child re-told me the story about how that word was used in context: a pretend story, I am quite sure, about someone saying something mildly rude or offensive to them, and this tiny four year old child “punching the (dumb) guy in the face”. They were claiming it was true. I told them I had known them for a long time and I found that surprising because I knew that they were a very nice person. They cheerfully disagreed. They went back to playing. The other children avoided eye contact. 

A short time later, sitting next to their cool-guy friend, not-listening to the circle time story from far away (but most definitely listening to the circle time story, The Rabbit Listened), they said “stupid” again, a few times in rapid succession, then looked to see if I was still paying attention. I was. I whispered, “I keep hearing that word I told you was not allowed at school”. They immediately nodded at me, told me “okay” and changed up the conversation. 

Later still, sitting near me again, they punctuated a sentence to another child by adding “doodoo” at the end: a mild and generally inoffensive name. Their eyes lifted to me and they immediately added, “That’s not even a bad word”. I agreed. I told them I could tell they were being careful about their language and that poop words aren’t offensive to most kids. The child they had been addressing agreed it was fine. 

They saw me writing this, asked me what I was doing. I told them, “I’m writing a story. It’s about us.” We both smiled, returned to our work. A little while later, they sang a little song that included the sound, “stuuuu….”--they found my eyes, diverted, smiling. I smiled too. They kept finding me, playing near me, the whole day, asking in different ways if I still thought they were a nice person. I did.