Final rant, promise.  Well, for now at least.

[Apparently this post may offend. Just to clarify this is my personal rant reflecting my personal opinions and peeves. If it offends you then your opposing opinion probably offends me too! ]

I have what could be termed as a potty mouth.  I swear like a trooper.  However, I rarely ever swear at or in the vicinity of my children.  There's basic boundaries you should have, just like when  I was a teenager, you swore all day long to your mates yet you wouldn't dare swear at your teacher, parent or neighbour.  You just didn't.  Likewise you didn't expect them to swear at you.  It was basic respect.

The problem these days is that people have forgotten the purpose, the function of swearing.  Swearing is technically profanity, the use of expletives.  Swearing is not and should not be a fashion of bridging sentences together.  A true bridge would be a word such as 'and'.

A simple trip on the bus will surround you with conversation of 'yeah i fucking went and saw Si the other fucking day he was well off his fucking head the stupid c*nt'  What purpose really does that kind of sentence serve?  Does it makes the person appear literate?  Educated? Profound? Poignant?  Does the excessive and lazy utilisation of expletives make a point? No.  So many words in the dictionary, yet they can't appear to think of any alternatives.  It's not nice to hear this, it's irritating.  It becomes worse when travelling with your children and they become subjected to this atrocious misuse of the English language.  It's become so natural that people have no awareness that they're actually doing it and often appear none plussed when The Husband, for The Spawns sake, pulls them up on it and requests they adjust their language.

If you want to use profanity and expletives, do so by all means but have some grasp of the correct useage of them first! Educate yourself with a basic understanding on their purpose.

An expletive is supposed to have an effect, it's supposed to be vulgar.  An emphasis.

I'm absolutely appalled at how many parents appear to openly and routinely swear in front of and at times to their children.  It's unnecessary and in my opinion irresponsible.  It's why by age 8 your child may be swearing right back at you.  They've become so used to hearing it with no basic understanding of it that it becomes a part of their every day language.  I also don't appreciate you swearing profusely and needlessly right outside the Nursery whilst waiting for the Two, Three and Four year olds to enter/exit.

Where has the basic parenting gone?  Surely it is common sense that you don't swear at nor in the vicinity of Children? Why on earth would you? There's thousands of  none expletives!

It makes me sad.  It makes me angry. It's irresponsible and lazy.

We're not perfect, occasionally the odd expletive slips out, usually a b-grade, rarely an A-grade expletive. We're only human.   Granted The Husband is guiltier than me.  Especially when he's wrong or losing an argument.  It's an awareness of it that matters.  Taking the effort to refrain.  Behaving appropriately around children.

Then again I'm also a firm believer that if a parent must smoke, that too should not be done around nor in sight of their children.  Children learn through replicating the behaviours and attitudes they see around them.

As parents we are their role models, surely part of that responsibility to to try and continually be a better one.

Granted once the kids are out or asleep, the air turns blue with my somewhat colourful language but that's all part of the job.

Sorry seems to be the hardest word

There are certain words which we assume our children should recite when appropriate such as their p's an q's in the hope that they should become a natural response.  I doubt I'm alone in the pride I feel when all three of The Spawn reliably and consistently use their manners and most importantly unprompted which suggests that not only do they simply know the words but to use them correctly and independently they must also thus understand the meaning of them too in order to appropriate them to situations.  The Husband and I frequently have random strangers compliment our childrens good manners.

Yet another word we seem to do this with is sorry,  how often does the meaning get lost as the word is more oft than not used as a simple get out clause.  I'm sure many of us are guilty when our little shit darling does something unsavory or lets be honest down right gittish, we glower at them and then with saccharine sweetness prompt 'say sorry darling' or 'ahem, is there something you want to say?'  Here's the thing, sorry is just another five letter word unless you mean it.  This is how over time words have lost their true brevity and meaning as they become overused and lazily used such as the words love and hate.  You love your child yet you really like ice cream.  You may hate the government yet you actually only strongly dislike brussel sprouts.  Another one of these gems is the word depressed.  How often to we here people bemoan 'oh god, i'm so depressed' yet in truth they're usually only sad/bored/fed up/melodramatic yet because of the blase and incorrect use of the word it's meaning is affected so that when someone is truly clinically depressed it is often cast aside as something transient and benign.

I hold my hands up, I never really thought about the whole sorry thing with Thing One and Thing Two, they were occasionally prompted yet mostly offered up the word themselves and then they get to that age when you listen and realise, they say it because it's expected.  They say it as damage limitation or more often bollocking limitation to draw a line under something and return to terrorising the world.  Yet when you catch that twang of sarcasm or that derisive and clipped 'soz.' you realise that the meaning isn't actually there.

So now we come to The Toddler. If he accidentally hurts you or accidentally breaks something, he offers up a genuine and instinctive 'sorry!!! I vewy sowwy !' near instantly yet should he lash out in anger or in spite, you'd have better luck getting blood from a stone than a sorry from him.  Why?  Because quite simply at that moment in time, he actually isn't bloody sorry and thus sees no reason to say it.  His negative act was on purpose and meant.  At that moment in time he wanted to hurt/break/upset something or more often, someone.  He isn't ready to be sorry because he has to deal with the emotion that motivated the act before he can feel remorse.   So how useful really would it be to prod and prompt a sorry out of him before he is ready to feel it and thus mean it?  Sorry isn't a word you should resent.  It's a process.

Yes he was most likely in the wrong.  Yet surely it's more important to understand that than it is to utter a word without meaning and brush it all under the carpet?

So I'm working consistently to prevent The Husband from forcing apologies from The Toddler to Things One & Two and to instead help The Toddler recognise the motivating emotion behind the action, then to admit the action in question and discuss it's affect on the afflicted party then leave it up to The Toddler to decide if he is in fact sorry.  It may be minutes later or even hours but sure enough eventually and calmly The Toddler will approach them and offer a sincere and genuine apology.   Surely this is far more desirable than a forced anger tainted 'sorry.' It's teaching him reflection, empathy and remorse whilst respecting his negative yet valid emotions.

Communication is a tool for life and one of the many gifts we can give our children.  They are instinctual creatures and react predominantly on a physical level, this is natural.  If Thing One pisses The Toddler off, he usually lashes out.  Right? no. Natural? yes.  Admit it, tell me you haven't thought about smacking someone in the face when they annoy the hell out of you?  Is it wrong to feel that way?  No.  However, as we mature we learn it would be wrong to act upon it.  This is something our little ones have yet to fully grasp that whilst it's okay to feel something negative it's not always okay to act on it.  We're making progress, quite often now The Toddler, rather than hitting the shit out of Thing One will instead come storming in, quivering with potent rage whilst proclaiming 'Mummy.....I REALLY ANGY'.  I let him know it's okay to feel angry and invite him to have a cuddle and talk about what he is angry about, offering explanations as I accept what he feels.  His anger may not be desirable, it may not even in our eyes be justified but it isn't wrong and he has a right to feel that way.  Sometimes that's all they need to calm down is validation and explanation and for us to remember that whilst being the subject of someones anger is awful, it's not exactly a barrel of laughs being the angry one either, especially when you may not yet understand how to deal with such a big bad emotion.

So next time you feel your child should be saying sorry, concentrate more on helping them feel it.  If they're not ready to talk about it, fine.  Give them their space to calm down, let them know you're not happy with what they did, as it made x sad/hurt/angry and when they're ready to talk about it, you'll be there.  Don't crowd them.  Don't force them to talk before they're ready, you'll just fuel the emotion they're already struggling to deal with. Let them be angry, this will then allow them to be sorry. Go offer solace to the afflicted party if needed rather than feeding the offending party, try not to answer anger with anger no matter how awful the act was, yelling at an angry upset toddler to calm down, just isn't going to work.  You can't put fire out with fire. If you want to reason with your child you have to be reasonable.

Sorry is only the hardest word when you're made to say it when you're not ready to feel it.