should I stop my 8 yo ds to say "on man", "what's up?"

If you don’t like it, I’d just ask him to stop.  My children pick up things here and there that I don’t like for one reason or another and I ask them not to say it, and if it slips out I remind them and it usually takes care of the problem.  My kid’s say “oh, man” and “what’s up” alot…because they hear it from me….

My personal opinion?  If you have to say no, only say it with good, justifiable reason.  I have a hard time with parents who impose every little personal preference of their own onto their children.

If there is no obscenity, profanity, or disrespect involved, I’d let it go.  Just my 2 cents.  🙂

Missceegee….I agree 100% with “gosh” (too close to profanity, and actually an obvious substitute or derivative), and actual crassness.

I would not allow my son to do either.  Respectfully, though, I think there is a difference between semi-profanity/crassness, and just pure personal preference.  To me the former falls along the lines of not allowing my daughter to wear mini-skirts…obviously.  The latter is more like telling her she has to wear blue instead of orange because I don’t like orange.

While I don’t have a problem with oh man and what’s up if it is not said in a rude way, I do think that we should help our dc understand appropriate speech. Sometimes it can be just an overuse of the same word or phrase that can be a turnoff to others. I was just sitting here thinking about a lot of the people who have greatly inspired me in my life and I can’t think of one that uses slang, crassness or anything close. I have had a few people that I have looked up to that after hearing vulgarity come out of their mouth it became difficult to respect them. I want to teach my dc to be appropriate in any given situation so that some day they can influence others in the right way.

I agree with each house having it’s own rules and I think there’s a benefit to teaching your children to respect others – which is really what you’re teaching him when he does something annoying and you kindly ask him to stop and he does stop.  My children are permitted to ask each other to stop doing things that bother each other (singing loudly in the van – there’s no escape for the child that’s being annoyed so out of respect the singing child is asked to sing more quietly or wait til later to sing) – in other cases I’d ask the child that is feeling annoyed to consider if they can do something to avoid being annoyed while allowing the other child to continue whatever it is they are doing – just mutual respect, getting along with others.

I also impose some rules in my house that are not matters of morals, but rather just good habits that I want them to develop.  For instance, in our house, we have a rule that even the smallest children are not allowed to touch the walls.  We have spoke stairrails they can use to get up and down stairs and lots of furniture for those beginning walkers to prop themsevles up with.  We don’t touch walls because it makes them dirty.  Sounds nit-picky to some, but if you start from a young age and have natural consequences for children who repeatedly forget (they get to wash the walls!) it’s just a matter of teaching them not to get into a bad habit (and consequently carries over into keeping their hands to themselves and in their own personal space in many areas including shopping). 

Now, if you feel you are nagging your children or struggling with them in many moral areas – you should probably drop some of the “little” things.  But when your days are “smooth and easy” there is always room for improvement and personal development – even in our OWN lives!

I am loving reading this discussion because it relates to one my sister and I had last night. We were talking about boys and haircuts. She has 2, I have 5, and her husband is in the Army so haircuts happen ALL THE TIME for him. He prefers that their boys keep their hair short BUT they have come to the decision that so long as their sons shower and wash their hair daily they may grow it longer because it’s not a moral issue, it’s a personal preference. However the deal they struck with the boys is that if they miss showers they lose the right to longer hair and will be buzzed because it is important to be clean.

We were agreeing that we want our “No” to really matter to our children, so we limit what things are met with absolute no (moral issues) and we try to be more open on the personal preference type things.

All very interesting. I wish my one DS said only “what’s up” or “oh man.” He says much worse unfortunately. I wonder if some of what some of you are saying has contributed. I used to be fairly firm, and now he says things in anger definitely for shock value and to hurt me or DH. There is a long version, which I just don’t intend to post, but anyway I would definitely let these two go but everyone’s situation is different.