Author’s practical guidance
Shouts the funny word for it in the supermarket
Source named in the book: the range of ordinary body behavior in young children (Friedrich)
Somewhere around three, body words turn out to be the funniest words available, and the discovery is genuine.
Say this now
“That word is for home or the bathroom, not the store.”
A rule about place, not about a shameful word.
“You can say it as much as you like when we get in.”
Removes the fun by granting it. Usually unused.
Do this
- Keep your face still. Whatever it does next is the thing they are testing for.
- Give it a legal home — the bathroom, the car, five minutes after the store.
- Say the rule once then change the subject entirely.
- Do not negotiate the volume in the aisle. Handle it in the parking lot.
- Agree the line with the other adults so it is not funny in one house and forbidden in the other.
Avoid this
- "That's a rude word!" Now it is a weapon, and they know exactly where you keep it.
- Laughing along in public. One laugh buys you two weeks of performances.
- Apologizing loudly to the stranger over the child's head, which doubles the audience.
If it repeats
If it is still going after a few weeks, it is running on a reaction somewhere — a cousin, a sibling, an adult who cannot keep a straight face. Find the audience rather than the word.
Why the book suggests this
Somewhere around three, body words turn out to be the funniest words available, and the discovery is genuine. The joke is not the part of the body. The joke is your face, the stranger's face, and the fact that one small word did all of that.
Research on ordinary body behavior in this age group puts loud, repeated, delighted use of these words in the common column. It passes, and it passes fastest where the reaction it is fishing for does not arrive.
From this collection
Same Words: Their Own Body
45 prepared situations in this family area.