I will be the FIRST person to start rapping some Sir Mix a Lot when ‘Baby Got Back’ comes on Pandora! Ask any of my friends… It is my JAM! However, if my kiddos start saying “Butt” and using other potty mouth words because they heard those bunnies sing that ONE line in the movie Sing, I probably won’t be as keen to get down to that song.
I had a friend of mine call to catch up and we had this very same conversation. As this mom of three boys put it, “I’m trying to raise respectful boys and it doesn’t sound so great when they keep saying the words ‘butt’ or ‘booty’ all the time!” … I hear ya, girl!
One suggestion- Find a fun and reinforcing replacement word for ‘butt’. When you hear your child using the inappropriate word, tell your babe that you do not use that type of language but make it a fun interaction and tell them that you are going to come up with a fun word TOGETHER that you both are okay with using. It could be ‘apple bottom’, ‘tukhus’ or even a completely made up word that these extremely creative tiny humans can come up with! When they use the replacement word, go CRAZY with reinforcement! You want to make sure that your child understands that when they use the replacement word that they get WAY MORE reinforcement then when they use the inappropriate word.
If they forget and use the ‘potty word’, use a neutral tone and just say, “We do not use that word, what’s another word we CAN say?”. Then reinforce when they use the replacement word.
I put this theory into practice with my daughter and her friends at a recent pool party. One of the friends started singing ‘Baby Got Back’ and carried out the entire line that included ‘butt’. My daughter immediately got wide eyed after hearing the ‘B’ word (haha, oh child… So innocent!). At this moment, I decided to intervene and started “A new game!” I told the kids that we are not going to say “butt” however, we are going to come up with silly words instead and it will sound like this, “Oh my gosh, look at her apple!” These kids had a BLAST coming up with different words that could fill in that spot. We used anything from chair, other people’s names, pool, bubbles to even strawberry! This lasted several minutes and then after it was done, we did not hear the ‘butt’ word anymore! It was like we got it out of their system and that is all that they needed. Boom… Mission accomplished!
But don’t worry, You KNOW I will still be gettin’ down to those gangsta rap songs during nap time… Who else is with me?!