You’re driving to school, blasting your favorite music, and all of a sudden – oh, shit. Wait, no, sorry. Oh, shoot. You forget that the song you’re improvising doesn’t have the most child-friendly language.
Your initial reaction might be to turn off the radio, or hide the song on Spotify, never to be heard again. But, one mom says it might not be the right choice.
Layla Shaikley (@laylool) posted a video on Instagram Reels of her and her 6-year-old daughter listening to music in the car, with her daughter noting that she heard “foul words.”
“My first reaction was, oh my God, let’s turn it off, this is terrible,” Sheakley said. “But then I stopped and I backed off. I was like, well, what an ineffective way of communicating.
Instead, Sheakley realized this was a lesson-teaching moment.
“We have two choices now. We can stop listening because we really don’t like hearing these things, or we can choose to ignore it and move on and realize that we don’t talk like that. We are more mature than that. We Speaking in a clear way that really made the point we wanted to make,” she said.
Sheakley explained that the reason she chose this option was because she knew she could not protect her daughter from hearing the curse words, but she could potentially influence her attitude toward her daughter.
“I could trick myself into believing that one day she would be in the car with her friends and say, ‘Hey, let’s turn it off. They said bad things. But she didn’t,'” she explained. .
The truth is, you can’t protect your kids from hearing swear words, and honestly, do we want to? I mean, the clean versions of Taylor Swift songs aren’t that interesting. But truth be told, preventing children from hearing inappropriate language does nothing to teach them how to handle inappropriate language when it occurs.
“I want to make sure she knows there are always more effective ways to talk. People can choose how to communicate, but she should communicate in a way that is effective and consistent with her values,” Sheakley said.
“I feel like as parents of young children, we try very hard to protect our children and immerse them in these realities that don’t exist outside the confines of our own cars or homes,” she continued .
Parents in the comments appreciated Sheakley’s perspective on the situation.
“We have to be realistic and prepare our children for social success, not naivety,” one user agreed.
“My son is also six and we’re staying super neutral and just explaining that some words are only for adults to use and when he gets older he can decide how to express himself. I feel like the more you do with ‘bad’ words the more The bigger they are, the more attractive they are to children,” added another.
So parents don’t have to worry. Hearing a few curse words is not the same as taking a dump. In fact, it may even help kids become better prepared for the world around them.
