It has happened to all of us at one time or another.  You just hurt yourself, you’re having an argument over the phone, watching sports (this one is really dad specific) and your team loses. What happens next? A stream of invective more suitable for a pub than a home, and right in front of the little one!

Sometimes the child will repeat what was said immediately after you, sometimes later that day, or sometimes (the worst one in my opinion), your child will repeat the word (or words) days later, after you thought you’d gotten away with it!
The easiest situation to resolve is of course when they are beginning to repeat the same cursing you have just let slip out. I have found that finding something that sounds very similar (but is safe to say in public) should be repeated to your child, and he or she can be made to feel that they misheard, much laughing and joking should be used while you’re having this discussion. If at any point the child thinks that the words are shocking or forbidden, or sees that there is a massive effect upon people near by, you are quite frankly, doomed. 

Keep the tone light, find a very good replacement word, repeat in the same tone you said the bad word. At one point my husband had an unexpected attack of invective after hurting himself fixing the sink with our (then 2 year old) son looking on. Right on cue, he began repeating my husband, loudly, we immediately let him know, laughing the whole time, that what daddy said was flying chips (you can imagine), and we practiced with him for a good 5 minutes to make sure he got it right. It was quite the inside the joke with us for months afterward as he’d loudly exclaim: “flying chips!” after  a disappointment or frustration, then we’d of course have to tell the whole story by way of explanation, which can be quite the ice breaker at social functions. By extension this is also the best solution when the child in question repeats the offensive language later in the day, immediately respond by explaining that you said something else, use your imagination and respond quickly!

The hardest situation to resolve is when your child repeats the offensive language the next day, or even days later. The first thing you must do is show no reaction, children under 3 years will treat anything that gets them attention as a game, and a negative reaction is like playing with the car horn–incredibly attractive for some kids.  Next you have to make a snap decision; either to ignore it completely, no reaction of any sort, or you have to distract your child away from remembering the word was of any but the least consequence.  A good method is to walk them over to a very noisy andd distracting toy, or ease them into a favorite game. If the word is repeated again repeat this process, then its a matter of wait and see.

On rare occasion a child will continue to use an offensive word, especially when its a proven ‘hot button’, again the best solution with this age group is substitution (of a rhyming non-offensive word), and distraction (show no response, but move the child into a new converstaion/activity).

In summary, the best solution to this problem is to avoid any exposure to the offensive words to begin with, but when (as is often the case) the genie has been let out of the bottle, the next best thing is to deadpan, then substitute and distract from the bad word and related situation as quickly as possible using humor and love.

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