Plug your ears if you don’t like naughty words because today, right here, you are going to hear a few doozies that came straight out of the mouths of preschoolers. They really do parrot what they hear from—gulp—adults.
Three-year-old Johnny is looking at a puzzle of Jesus.
“Johnny, do you know who that is?” I ask. He continues looking at it without answering me, so I give him a hint. “That’s Jesus, God’s son. Do you know who God is?”
Johnny looks up at me with his innocent and questioning eyes. “God Dammit?” he asks, truly wanting to know if we are talking about the same God—God Dammit—that he hears mentioned at home. I lift him into my lap and do my best to teach him who God is, and that we should never say “God dammit” because it hurts God’s feelings.
And then there is quiet, quirky Sally who struggles with separation anxiety and spends her morning with a scorn on her face …
That day we were having goldfish crackers for our snack, and I had drawn a big goldfish on the white plates that I was setting them on. As is our regular routine, after the children wash their hands, they sit and wait patiently for their classmates to be seated. Then we pray and at long last, it’s time to eat.
Grumpy Sally washed her hands and stomped to her seat, sitting there with her sourpuss face on. Well, all of a sudden she noticed the drawn goldfish on her plate and exclaimed with a one-time-only burst of delight, “Oh, for God’s sakes, it looks just like the crackers!”
She saw me look her way and immediately put her mad-face back on …
Poor little Mikey has allergies and his eyes get all itchy and red when we play outside in the spring.
One morning the two of us were talking about how the pollen from the trees is what makes his eyes feel yucky, and I heard him mutter, “Asshole.”
“What did you say?” I asked him in a you-just-might-be-in-trouble voice.
“I said that tree is an asshole,” Mikey said, totally unaware that he said a naughty word.
The names in these stories have been changed, so if you use this type of language and have a preschooler, the child just might be yours …
