Kids and cussing... Poll time sorta.

From age 14 or so, I heard both kids cussing while playing games. They turned the filter on around us and the grandparents. They were pretty good about not swearing beyond saying "what the hell" around adults.

Then they turned 18. After the last one graduated, the filter was turned off. Texts from him included a few swear words. The older one still filters it but not as much.

I swear like a sailor. Fuck is my favorite word. I even have a mug that says "I swear so much that I forget it offends people." I'm surprised my kids waited until graduation to really turn off the filter around us. They're more polite around MIL and great grandma. MIL gets a sour look if I swear.

I swear and my kids do. Btw it is not a sign of lack of intelligence, a well placed swear word can be brilliant.

I never let them use curse words when they were kids, and even now that they're adults, I will yell LANGUAGE if they let it slip. Lol.

I, however, am free to say all of the bad words. Grown ups only. I'll reconsider when they're 40. 😁

My really only rule about cussing is to know your audience and the situation.

Mom chewing on you for something and you curse at me? Not good and will be in trouble.

With your buddies playing basketball and curse? Don't care.

In Mass and feel the need to curse? Don't.

I swear like a sailor but I am always aware of my audience. 

To answer the OP, I spot checked my kids phones when they were younger. It never really was a big deal as they would rather chat on a video game than by text.

I grew up in a household where the kids were not allowed to swear and there was the threat of having your mouth washed out with soap if you did. BUT I have many older siblings, most of whom swear like sailors. I learned very early on that you need to know your audience as some others here have mentioned. My mom and dad only very rarely swore in front of us and if they did there was good reason for doing so.

Now that I’ve said all that, I grew up and had the horrific sailor mouth with my friends or my siblings in private but never ever in front of my mom (dad passed away when I was young) or any of my older relatives. Never at school and certainly never at church, that would be grounds for severe punishment so you just knew not to.

Fast forward to having my own kid, and like all of the important conversations you have with your child, this was one that started early and was reinforced often. Once we had our kid the swearing by the adults in our house was almost immediately curbed. I switched to more creative non offensive phrases which I still say to this day. I know they’re like little parrots who repeat whatever they hear at home and I didn’t want her to get busted at school for saying something she heard at home, and that would include anything that could be considered derogatory or offensive to any particular group of people. And because we have some fairly religious family members too, I made sure she would also never say “Oh my God!” or anything of that nature either. I’ve told her that while WE aren’t offended by any words really, that doesn’t mean that *other* people won’t be so it’s best to just not get in the habit of saying them because those habits can be pretty hard to break.

Now she’s at the age where kids start to test those boundaries and I’ve overheard some of her edgier friends do so when she’s video chatting with them. She will be the one to say that SHE doesn’t like it when people use those words around her, and she will also tell them to knock it off because her mom is in the room and can hear everything they are saying! 🤬😬🤐 She knows if she said something around me I’m not going to personally care, but I know she won’t because she has taken what I’ve said about filtering to heart.

Yes!

Swearing isn't necessary but sometimes it just really hits the spot and nothing else will do. I use most swear words from time to time except C which I hate for some reason.
DDs were not allowed to swear at home/company etc until they were much older teens and then they knew what they'd get away with. Now we all have to watch ourselves when DGS is around.

My kids are 15 and 12. Adults rarely swear around kids but we don’t hide it from them. Kids aren’t interested in swearing yet. If they included swear words in every day speech I think I’d be upset at them and I’d want them to pick different words. It’s not something I’d be mad about. I’d just stress the ability for better word choice.

Funny story for you all around cussing.

We used to have hubby's daughters for a few weeks each summer when they all were kids (his and mine are all within 2 1/2 years of age... 4 girls). We used to go on road trips. One time on a road trip we were playing "The Minister's Cat." The idea if you don't know this game is to be the last person who comes up with a descriptive term (doesn't have to make sense) for each letter. 

Our youngest was only about 7 at the time and she NEVER swore, but was nonetheless very competitive. So when she could think of nothing else, her competitive nature overtook her and she said "The minister's cat is a fucking cat." 

As you can imagine we all fell over ourselves laughing and it's still one of those family stories we tell. She's now 29 and swears a lot,  just like the rest of us!

With how much we all swear, we expect that the next generation will start young. Hopefully we can get them to not do it at school. 

I sometimes heard my kids in their room talking with their friends using vocabulary they did not use around us. As long as they know when and where to use it, it did not bother me. I rarely curse except when I am really, really upset. For kids now it seems part of everyday language.

Well, as I say, I love Jesus but I cuss a little.

My rule with my 13yo is to know when it's acceptable and when it's not, and to keep it from being excessive. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned not directing at others or using it aggressively, and that's a good rule. 

For me as a kid it was part of learning to express myself, and I feel that I am not here to prohibit but to guide. I don't like it in excess, or in place of actual self-expression, but otherwise I think swears are mostly just words and it isn't all that useful to place too much importance on these in particular. There are worse things to say than "fuck". 

My husband and I swear a lot, so our rule for the kids has always been - You can swear around us, but not at us. Now, my kids are 17, 18 and 27 and mostly swear when playing video games online or with their friends. We do censor ourselves around the 18 year old, because he is autistic and we don't want him fixating on a "new" word and repeating it at school. His teacher told me once that my son dropped a book on his foot at school and said "shit" and the teacher was thrilled he was acting like a normal teenager and laughed about it.

Where is the option NO ONE CUSSES*? 

Neither of us cussed when the kids were growing up. I grew up in a nonswearing environment and never developed the habit. DH is in construction and definitely has a different vocabulary there than at home. 

Somewhere around 2016 I started dropping a lot of Fbombs a little too easily and am thankful my kids were old enough to laugh at me instead of imitating me. 

They are 22/24 and I don't recall ever hearing either of them swear. I'm sure they do, and only care that they use the words in an environment appropriate way.

* I don't use "cuss" either. I associate it with Westerns. Swearing is the word I'd use.

I could not hit any.

Adults (mostly me) curse.

Kids do not get in trouble for cursing if it is like, “today was a shit day.” I ask the teenagers not to do it in front of the younger kids, and I tell the younger kids that it is a bad habit for them because at some point they will do it in school or at someone’s home and have consequences, and that I will not protect them from those consequences.

The kids do, however, get punished if they curse at each other.

I have a filthy mouth. My kids tease me about it. They don't swear in front of me, but I'm pretty sure they swear occasionally around their friends. We always tease and call out language when they're listening to music or movies with swear words--which is a family joke since we all know I'm the worst influence of all. They're all in college now, but they would not be in trouble for swearing when they were younger. Although we do distinguish between exclamatory swearing and name-calling or person-directed swearing, which are not ok.