Teacher comes up with great way to stop kids saying inappropriate words in public

Sophie Collins

“It is all about your reaction”

Every parent and guardian will have experienced a moment in their kid’s life when they blurt out something inappropriate in front of company.

Although it’s completely natural – and sometimes funny – it’s all part of them developing awareness of everything around them.

Despite the humorous side of things, it can also be a nightmare for mums, dads, other relatives and even teachers if a word or phrase they pick up is particularly bad.

It can be tricky to figure out how best to deal with this situation, but one teacher has said she knows exactly how to handle it thanks to her years with kids in the classroom.

A person’s first reaction is usually to say ‘don’t say that,’ and although if you’re not in company it remains effective, if there are others around, the teacher said avoid that sentence at all costs.

Instead, she recommends that you take a very different approach, in order to avoid that word or phrase becoming a regular issue.

She said the interesting thing about children is, when they hear they shouldn’t say something, it naturally becomes more interesting to them.

Since posting her advice on TikTok (@missteachyy) she has gone viral, and for good reason, as some of her followers brand her lengthy list of advice as ‘genius’.

In one particular video, she explained what she would do in her class – which can be mimicked in other settings whether it be at home, out at a restaurant or at a kid’s party.

She said: “So a child says something inappropriate in your class. The worst thing you can say to that child in front of your entire class is, ‘don’t say that’”.

This response is likely to get the attention of other kids, who then ask the first child to repeat the word and explain what it means.

Even if the child can’t answer the question on the first go, they’re likely to seek out advice from an older sibling or friend, and soon everyone has learned something you’d rather they didn’t.

“It’s true,” the teacher continued, “humans are strange because we’re all intrigued and want to learn more about things that we shouldn’t necessarily know”.

She went on to say: “If you shout out to a child ‘don’t say that’ you’re igniting a very scary forest fire.

“If you really want to handle that situation just pull that child to the side and say, ‘what you just said… Do you know what that means?’

“Because I have news for you – a lot of time, kids will shout nonsense that they know is not necessarily right to see how you react, but they don’t even know what it means.

“Be really casual about it. It is all about your reaction”.