At age 2 we try to completely ignore it. We found if we do react she'll use it again. Most of the time I'll say a words that sounds somewhat similiar to take her mind off of it. For example, if she says bit**, I'll say "oh, look at the BIRD."
I too am curious what other moms do for the kids who are a little older and intentionally use bad words.

Hello Friend,
Do NOT get angry at your child when they uses bad words. Most kids don’t understand that the regurgitated “fun” word is a naughty one. They just know it’s a new and unique word that kinda rolls off the tongue. Keep your reaction controlled when addressing what it was the child did wrong, and why your family doesn’t use words like that. My daughter broke down crying when she realized she had said a bad word to her teacher!

I asked my 4-year-old how his day in preschool went recently. He told me someone had said a bad word to him. When I asked him what the boy had said, he told me: "Duuuuuude!"

Sometimes our preschoolers don't really know what a bad word is. And I would guess they sometimes don't understand the words they mimmic that really are bad words.

Besides, even when they do know a particular word is not a word mommy or daddy wants them using, they haven't really developed the ability to understand the abstract concept of vulgarity.

So I would agree with others. Don't get angry. Calmly teach them correct ways of talking and why they shouldn't use bad words and make sure mom and dad and what we ket them watch on TV, movies, and music are not undermining everything else we try to teach them.

Every child experiment withs curses and ugly words. Profanity is often heard on the streets, on television, in our environment. It is a part of language and folklore of every nation, and has its rightful place but the children do not know when it is appropriate to curse and therefore we must try to make children understand that curses are not nice words.

Be ready to have the biggest problem with your surroundings (family, friends ...), who will find it funny and interesting when the children say bad words, and maybe they will encourage or even teach them new bad words. On the other hand, it is very interesting for children to be in the focus of attention while swearing.

In these situations, I did not react, I ignored the swearing. My children would notice, every time, that I didn’t find it interesting. When I was alone with my children, I tried to explain them, that these words are inappropriate and insulting. I would explain why everyone laughed as well. I said that they were laughing because profanity is not nice, it is not interesting.

At one period, in elementary school, my son started to curse very often and in a very ugly manner. No explanations helped. Banning was not my education style, so I decided to ask him to curse even more. For every curse he would say, I would ask him to go to the bathroom, shut the door and repeat the word 10 times, but loud enough so I can hear him in the living room.

He may be "shocked" by himself, or he realized the absurdity of words he repeated, but he stopped swearing, soon.

Hi I'm Heidi, I'm new to the forums. Just wanted to give you my input, which is in my family we have bad words: stupid is a big one; then we have grown-up words, all the 4 letter words, plus a few more that I've deemed inappropriate for my little girls to say. When she says a word like s**t I very sternly say "That's grown-up words" and it usually ends it. These incidents are very few and far between. As for bad words, like stupid, she tells me when she catches me saying it or when her favorite TV characters say it. That's what works for us.