My brother's rule for his kids regarding swearing and other NSFW words is: "You'll probably hear adults use these words from time to time, but you can't repeat these words until you start paying taxes."
Soooooo I’m guessing your nieces and nephews swear whenever they want, they’re just careful not to do it when dad is around to hear it.
I tend to favour my friends’ policy about swearing with their kids: everybody feels differently about it, so you have to be careful about swearing around other people until you know whether it’s okay with them. At home? Probably fine. At school? Probably need to be more careful about it.
It’s much more realistic to teach nuance than to outright forbid the behavior imo.
( Although I suppose we should probably acknowledge - 1) these are not our kids, and 2) every kid is different. Some kids appreciate the value of choosing your words to fit your audience, some adults never learned. )
I mean if the language is not appropriate at school, then the school should educate them. There's plenty other behaviours expected at a school - that the school teaches them - that isn't expected at the home or other places.
I'm not sure which comment you're reading, but the person you're replying to is talking about their friend's policy which explicitly states that there exist some people who you probably shouldn't swear around. It just isn't dad
I'm 38 and I still won't swear when my parents are around (maybe it's a cultural difference because I also can't imagine what a "they can say whatever they want in front of me" household would look like).
I was 30s before I could let myself swear in front of my parents. Who did I learn curse words from? My father, of course.
This was more of an individual thing than cultural though. My family is stereotypical North American Protestant, of Northern European descent. And neither of my siblings showed the same restraint in using "foul" language around my parents that I did.
My kids don't routinely swear in front of me. 10yo tries it out occasionally but then feels silly and stops. So our household is probably not too different from most when it comes to language use at home. But they don't get in trouble if they do, and I don't personally care - I try to emphasize the importance of thinking about what they're going to say to achieve their longer term goals. I'm more bothered by "you're stupid" than "fuck you", for instance, as the latter is more clearly just shorthand for "I'm angry at you". Though I try to get them to verbalize the latter if they can.
adults really shouldn't pregurgitate spurious reasoning like this for children, no matter how well-meaning. instead, we should tell them the direct truth, perhaps only eliding nuance and detail for the appropriate maturity.
swear words are exclamatories, meant to indicate extreme emotion. so using a lot of swear words is like shouting all the time, or using all caps all the time in writing. it washes away the richness of expression and makes the swearer seem unable to properly contextualize and express their emotions. our brains are attuned to wash out sameness and pick out differences, especially sharp ones. that's also why selective swearing is very effective, and constant swearing is ineffective.
there's certainly much more to it than just that, but that should be the core contextualization of swearing for kids. let them experiment on their own but just like shouting all the time, let them know it won't be tolerated in most situations until they can effectively and appropriately wield this grammatical tool. don't impose some indirect, off-the-cuff age cut-off, which they'll surely understand as being arbitrary and therefore easily (and rightfully) dismissed.
I tend to favour my friends’ policy about swearing with their kids: everybody feels differently about it, so you have to be careful about swearing around other people until you know whether it’s okay with them. At home? Probably fine. At school? Probably need to be more careful about it.
It’s much more realistic to teach nuance than to outright forbid the behavior imo.
( Although I suppose we should probably acknowledge - 1) these are not our kids, and 2) every kid is different. Some kids appreciate the value of choosing your words to fit your audience, some adults never learned. )