Right Message - Wrong Delivery

The other morning as I was heading to my car to go to work, I witnessed the impetus for this post. It was a young father walking his young son to either school or day care. The little boy could not have been much older than three or four. I gathered from what the father was chastising his son about was the little boy had picked something up off of the ground and had proceeded to put it or his hands that had touched it in his mouth. The directive of the father was right, but oh boy, was his delivery wrong.

"Don't you ever (expletive beginning with the letter "F") pick up nothin' off the (expletive beginning with the letter "F") ground, ya hear..... You don't know where the (expletive beginning with the letter "F") that has been and you puttin' it in your (expletive beginning with the letter "F") mouth. Don't you ever do that (expletive beginning with the letter "F") (expletive beginning with the letter "S") again." 

I am sure you were able to decode what the letters "F" and "S" stood for and can just imagine what that must have sounded like at 7:30 in the morning. In many instances we wonder where do children learn to speak in the manner in which too many of them speak......well there you have it; they learned it from their parents. I am quite sure that little three or four year old boy did not come out of the womb speaking such language, yet, I will bet that as a youngster, teenager and later on adult, will be addressing his peers and elders in the same manner.

I have had parents come into my school to address the issue of their children cursing at his/her teacher and will turn right around in my office and say to the child "I'm tired of coming to this (expletive beginning with the letter "F") school for your little(expletive beginning with the letter "M and ending in the letter F")(expletive begging with an "A" or another word for donkey). I will literally have to remind the parent that the child is in trouble for using just that language.

People will often argue with me when I say that much of our societal ills start in the home; however, I know this to be true. The children are only imitating or mimicking what they see or hear at home. You can rest assured that if this little three or four year old that I saw walking with his father the other day is not already dropping the "F" bomb, he will be. It's sad, that for many children that is the only type of communication that they are exposed to. It has been said that “Profanity is the effort of a feeble brain to express itself forcibly,” and if you critically think about it, you almost can't help but to agree. The worst part of it all is, these feeble brains are passing it along to their children and the cycle continues.

I felt sad for that little boy after listening to his father chastise him in that manner. The father had the right message but the wrong delivery. Something to critically think about and I invite you to listen to me live each Saturday morning at 6 a.m. on gobrave.org and WP88.7 FM as the host of The Reading Circle. I also invite you to follow me on Twitter @thinkcritical01.