(no subject)

[rivka]

[Poll #1397675]

NB: Don't worry, this is not something I am considering doing to my children. Although the three-month-old cusses like a sailor.

Comments

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i think if the goal you are going for is "child who gets caught less", then washing the child's mouth out with soap is an okay way to go. however, i also don't think that's the goal i'm going to be going for.

[glinda-w.livejournal.com]

Heh. That's *exactly* what it did to me, when my mother heard me say "Damn". I just made sure, from then on, that I didn't say it where she could hear me.

I also objected strenuously - if *she* could say it, why was it wrong for *me* to say it? "Do as I say, not as I do" never did work on me. *wry*

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

To the person who said "logical consequences": How is soap in the mouth a logical consequence of saying a swear word?

[papersky.livejournal.com]

How is having a time out a logical consequence of being noisy? I don't find "logical consequences" a very sensible system generally, and the people I've heard advocate it most enthusiastically are just the kind of people to do this kind of thing.

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

Exactly so for me, but I do see logical-consequences thinking to have some utility. For instance, if you break your toy, you won't have that toy to play with.

[sistercoyote.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on context (I am not the person that gave that answer, by the way). If I say to my child "If you say 'word x' again, I am going to wash your mouth out with soap," then it becomes a logical consequence of the action when I follow through, because that is what I said I'd do.

Do I think doing so is 'good parenting'? Most likely not. But as long as the consequence is established and followed through on, it is consistent parenting.

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

No, to my understanding, "logical consequences" is a theory that the child's action dictates the consequences because the consequences are an inevitable logical outpouring of the action. It doesn't mean "mommy will do what she says she will" but "action X results logically in consequence Y" -- for instance, if you throw your food on the floor, you don't have that food to eat any more, no matter how much you want it.

[sistercoyote.livejournal.com]

Okay - that's fair enough.

And of course anything I say on the subject should be taken with a grain of "doesn't have children," too.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

For this reason, I've heard people distinguish between "logical consequences" and "natural consequences" - a natural consequence is what happens without parental intervention, and a logical consequence is parent-imposed. So the natural consequence of wading in mud puddles without your rain boots is wet feet. A logical parent-imposed consequence might be having to go home and stay inside until your shoes dry.

Like papersky, I've seen people justify some very harsh, punitive stuff as "logical consequences." We use them, but we are very careful about keeping them proportionate and closely linked to the offense. For example, coloring on the wall = having to try to scrub the wall clean, even after you realize how hard it is and don't want to try anymore. But it doesn't mean having to scrub for an hour or having to repaint the whole room or having to wash all the walls in the house, or anything.

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

That makes sense to me.

[(Anonymous)]

"if you throw your food on the floor, you don't have that food to eat any more, no matter how much you want it"

Unless there are pets, one sure does have the food. Even some drinks can be licked from floor.

I do not think it is a consequence unless the child is not actually hungry. Of course, it is possible that the children you had in mind come from families that have not experienced hunger for more than one generation (I find this hard to imagine, but may-be this is possible in some well of families who never experienced war)

[txobserver.livejournal.com]

I am a firm believer in the use of natural and logical consequences but I certainly don't believe washing a child's mouth out with soap is an example of this.

Here is how I would analyze the behavior of a (young) child who swears. I think young children use swear words or bathroom words to get attention. When they say one of the offensive words it sounds so surprising to the adults around them that it gets a big reaction. So if I hear that behavior, I say, very calmly, "You know, everyone knows those words but we try not to say them [to strangers/ in company/ when we aren't talking about going to the bathroom] because it [hurts some peoples' feelings/talks about something that isn't pleasant to think about]. In this family our rule is that we try not to say those words [except when talking about our bodies to our parents or the doctor].

Now the rule and the reason has been explained. If the child says the word again, we might say "I explained why we don't use that word, it is because [repeat explanation]. Since you didn't remember that that word might hurt x's feelings, you'll need to play by yourself for a while and remember why we are careful not to hurt x's feelings. You can try again later.

This is a logical consequence, because removing the child from the audience for the naughty language is logically related to the result of the bad behavior...naughty language hurts someone's feelings or is distasteful to them.

Washing their mouth out may carry out a threat, but dirty language is only a figure of speech, it doesn't actually put dirt in their mouth.

[pbrim.livejournal.com]

Traditional thinking is that swear words are dirty language. Saying them gives you a dirty mouth. Therefore the mouth must be purified with soap.

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

That strikes me as not a logical consequence, but a twisted-logic-al one.

[naomikritzer]

Even applying this traditional "swearing makes your mouth dirty" approach suggests that the kid should be sent to brush their teeth with toothpaste. This is still a reasonable disincentive to swearing (it removes the kid from the conversation, where they'd probably like to be, and sends them off to some other part of the house), it allows the parent to be seen as Doing Something, and it sends the message that swearing is not acceptable.

But, unlike soap, toothpaste is an appropriate thing to put in people's mouths.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

It does, hwoever, make toothbrushing into a punishment.

I should note that being forced to go off and do pages of times-tables practice as punishment made me not any better at math, because I resented it and avoided it in all non-punitive contexts thereafter.

[naomikritzer]

It doesn't have to, any more than responding to inappropriate nose-picking by sending someone off to wash their hands turns hand-washing into something stigmatized.

[rms10.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. Sending a kid off to wash their hands after nose-picking isn't punishment; it's a necessity because they have dirty hands. But brushing teeth after swearing is not a necessity, therefore it is being used as a punishment. Also, that reinforces the idea that swearing makes your mouth physically dirty.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

It also deliberately attempts to teach the kid that swearing == nasty icky filthy GERMS.

[anthologie.livejournal.com]

Well, it's a message that those words are "dirty." It can also be very effective, unfortunately. I had this done to me -- and I was also shamed for teaching my brother the middle finger -- and as a result I rarely swear or flip people off. :-/

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

I had my mouth washed out with soap -- and much worse -- for swearing, and I curse like a sailor. People are different, and react to abuse in different ways.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

I've anecdotally noticed a strong correlation between families intent on teaching their kids a bright strong line between 'dirty' behavior/objects/etc and 'clean' ones, and them being really, really wrapped up in shame as a method of social control.

And, not coincidentally, with kids raised that way having to go to therapy afterwards to sort it out and stop hating themselves. :-/

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I'm going to delete this comment and invite you to repost it without the BDSM content, because I am very uncomfortable having that linked to a discussion of abusive parenting practices.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Understood; I'll avoid that in the future. I'm sorry to have posted something that bothered you here.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Although the three-month-old cusses like a sailor.

Now that you mention it, he does kinda look like John McCain too...

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

He'll grow out of it.

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

I remember when I was little, getting hauled off to have my mouth washed out with soap for some reason or another. It ranks with getting balloons for my birthday party as one of my earliest memories.

Oddly, I don't really have a strong opinion of it as a parenting technique. It's not something I'm ever tempted to do with my child, though.

[naomikritzer]

Soap is toxic. It's really not okay to put it forcibly into anyone's mouth, least of all that of a child who may not understand that they really should not swallow it.

The thing that particularly infuriates me about this as a punishment for swearing is that 99.9% of the parents who use this punishment swear, like most other adults. It's abusive with a side of blatant and shameless hypocrisy, in other words.

And there are 8 kazillion other options, most of which work a lot better.

[droewyn.livejournal.com]

My mother used to grind the soap into my teeth, too, so that the taste stayed for hours. I'm sure that also meant that I inevitably swallowed some.

[firecat]

I would have included "ridiculous" in the options.

[shandra.livejournal.com]

I once witnessed, no joke, a parent drag her kid into a public washroom to "wash your f--ing [she used the expletive] mouth out with soap." Yeah. Only time the idea has ever tempted me - and not for the child.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Okay, wait, what? The three-month-old cusses like a sailor? Huh?

(Or am I just not getting the joke because I don't have children?)

[ailbhe]

Just because you can't understand the words doesn't mean you don't know when someone is turning the air blue.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

It was a joke, although ailbhe is right - he can and does certainly express opinions which are clearly of the form "what the fucking fuck is this?!"

He does it by crying, though.

[laurarey.livejournal.com]

*laugh* This rang so true. Miss Meeps does this too. I swear she is saying "Where the hell is the damn boob!? I fucking hungry...get on it! The service in this place sucks!"

[aloha-moira.livejournal.com]

My dad did this once when I was a kid. It was gross and not especially effective, and I don't think I'd ever use it on my children (unless I wanted them to get the reference in "A Christmas Story") but I also do not think it comes close to qualifying as child abuse. I got a similar punishment a few other times with hot sauce instead of soap, which was much more painful. Frankly I don't know that I'll bother to punish our kids for swearing... explain to them that it's not appropriate in front of grandma or at school, sure, but otherwise, who cares? Depending on the context, I'd be more inclined to pull out the dictionary so we could find some more creative vocabulary.

[ailbhe]

It's one of the things I can see myself doing in a deep rage. I'm afraid of it.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

My parents never did it, and I doubt I would, had I children. It seems old-fashioned to me. I think it could be done abusively, but I'm not sure it's inherently abusive.

I knew one family that I knew did it in some circumstance; they put a drop of liquid (dish?) soap on their daughter's tongue. I kind of think it was for being disrespectful, rather than swearing, but it's been a long time since they mentioned it. (It came up in conversation once, more than 15 years ago. I was somewhat surprised to hear people still did that.)

[elynne.livejournal.com]

I have a vivid memory of having gone to a Catholic kindergarden (I'm not sure what my parents were thinking, there, seeing as how they hadn't introduced the *concept* of religion to me, thus ensuring that I would find the church culture utterly bewildering and alien, BUT ANYWAY) and one day, I said something (no idea what) that one of the nuns didn't like, and she was going to wash my mouth out with soap. I was terrified, though I really had no idea what was involved. My mother arrived in time to rescue me from the situation, and she assured the nun that I would be "punished". What she actually did was explain to me that certain words, especially words Daddy said, were considered "bad words" by certain people, and using those words around those people would get me in trouble, like the whole "mouth washed out with soap" thing, so I should probably avoid using them.

A few years later she made an offhand comment along the lines of "four-letter expletives are a sign of lack of intelligence and creativity," which made me examine who used them, how they were used, and why.

So... yeah. I'm much more in favor of explaining why, rather than arbitrary punishment - but to be honest, I'm not sure if my mother's explanation would have made as much of an impact without the realization that some people took it very seriously, and were willing to follow through on their threats.

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

So... yeah. I'm much more in favor of explaining why, rather than arbitrary punishment - but to be honest, I'm not sure if my mother's explanation would have made as much of an impact without the realization that some people took it very seriously, and were willing to follow through on their threats.

I'm not a parent, but I do know that for me, as a child? Things were effective as punishments and rewards based on how they applied to things I cared about.

Telling me that cussing made me sound less intelligent was effective when a teacher told me that because a) I was one of those kids who desperately wanted to please authority figures and b) my most prized quality was my brain, because it was the thing I considered my best feature.

So telling me that cussing both diminished my skills and disappointed an authority figure who's praise and approval I craved like oxygen was more effective than all the soap in the world.

Of course, this might not work on a kid who doesn't care about authority figures and is more concerned with looking cool in front of peers or rebelling. Don't know what you'd do in that situation.

[marith.livejournal.com]

"washing a kid's mouth out with soap" can be used to describe a range of actions from the symbolic to the abusive and dangerous. I was shocked when I first heard other adults talking about the concept as though it were no big deal, and then really surprised to find to them it meant basically "taste soap".

It's still one of my triggers. Forcibly putting 'wrong' things in a child's mouth seems like a terrible thing to do. (Also, it can mess up their reactions to dentistry, medicine, etc.)

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

You left "Tempting, under certain circumstances" off of your poll. (Not that I would, but still...)

My youngest got caught using the f-word one day, and when he was chastised complained that his teenage eldest brother said it all the time. His brother replied "Not where she can hear me, stupid!"

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

I got the soap treatment as a kid, and it didn't teach me not to cuss or why words were not appropriate in certain situations. I cussed whenever I could get away with it. All it taught me was not to say them where people who had the authority to shove soap in my mouth could hear them.

What did convince me to keep the swear words to a minimum was when a teacher explained that every curse word you utter makes people think your IQ is about two points lower than it is. The more you say, the stupider you look. It didn't hurt that she came up with some examples of people who cuss a lot and I realized that while I might have admired some, I certainly didn't consider any of them to be bastions of intellect.

Of course, this worked because I was the geeky kid who's only redeeming feature (or so I thought at the time) was my brains. But still, it worked. I'm still cautious of throwing those words around, even in my own blog.

What the soap treatment did teach me was to fear anyone getting near my mouth with something they wanted to put in it. My boyfriend tried to feed me a piece of fruit by surprise once and I freaked out completely.

Spanking had the same effect on me. To this day, I still flinch if someone gets angry near me and moves suddenly, even if they aren't mad at me because there's a part of my brain that expects that they will try to suddenly hit or slap me because they are angry and I sort of grew up understanding that spankings/slappings happen because when you do something that angers your parents enough to want to smack you suddenly.