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blake8086 comments on Open thread, Feb. 23 - Mar. 1, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Why don't you tell him the reasons you don't want him to swear? I assume you have reasons, but maybe you've never needed to articulate them before. I'm guessing your reason is something along the lines of "lower status people swear, I don't want people to think of you as lower status". I imagine a high IQ 10-year-old can understand that.
Also, if swear words are a fun and exciting thing to him, why not teach him all the swear words so he can increase his status among his friends?
Fear of this happening:
Vice Principal: "Your teacher says you said the word.....which is very hateful towards....."
Child: "Yes, I learned it from my dad."
Yes, and what can the Vice Principal do to you?
My son's teacher creates special projects for him to work on to better challenge him. I very much don't want that to stop.
OK, a valid reason.
I imagine that your son doesn't want it to stop either. Perhaps a roleplaying exercise (or just a discussion) about the implications and possible results of swearing at school would be in order?
Although it sounds like he does not plan to swear at school, and believes he has enough control not to let a swearword slip out. In which case it might be best to leave 'swearing at school' on the table unless he actually does it, in which case a lesson on contrition might be in order.
Swearing at home is a harder problem, I fear, if there's no clear and articulable reason why he ought not. Although I see you mention words that are "attacks on groups", which makes it sound like he's using slurs; if that's the case, I would suggest that a broader, serious talk about the historical context of them is in order. I expect he is plenty capable of understanding it. (But in explaining that, you will probably want to concede that some words are much worse than others, even in the realm of "things we'd prefer you didn't say at home.")
He doesn't ever say slurs with the intention of slurring a group, and we have successfully stopped him from repeating certain bad words by using the strategy you mentioned of giving the historical context and via the normal parental approach of picking our battles and being extremely firm on him not saying slurs after we have told him that a swear word is an attack on a group. Although anyone wanting to slur an entire group seems so silly to him that it's hard for him to emotionally internalize the harm some people feel at hearing certain words.
So you have successfully stopped him from saying bad things where you were able to articulate a reason?
Can you articulate a reason for the swear words that are still a problem?