I may have mentioned a time or hundred that Scorch is a very verbal kid.  He learned how to talk early and he basically hasn’t stopped since. Frankly, I think that’s awesome 99.9% of the time- he’s got a great vocabulary and you never have to wonder what he’s thinking. Scorch also likes to play word games- rhyming words, asking what words mean the same thing as another word and so on.  Again- awesome!  If our matching eyes weren’t enough, his inability to stay quiet would be proof enough that he’s my son.

But…what do I do about words he “makes” up that are actually bad words?  For example, Scorch had a bug bite the other day and was telling me it was itchy. The he made up a song about his itchy-bitchy bug bite.  We were at home and it was just the 4 of us so I didn’t mention that bitchy was a bad word (although I did snicker to myself all night).  Then today we were listening to “Bust a Move” in the car (don’t judge me) and Scorch changed it to busty.  And instead of saying “Mom, you’re so busted” he started saying, “Mom, you’re so busty.”   Again, he doesn’t have a clue!

However, I’m starting to wonder if I’m doing him a disservice by not telling him about words he shouldn’t say.  I don’t want him to say something that he’s said at home in school and get into trouble because I didn’t explain that words like bitchy aren’t nice to say and that calling a woman busty may be inappropriate.

So help me, wise internet- when did you start explaining the concept of really bad words to your kids?