Learning Phonics Can Be Dangerous
I need to put a warning on this post because though hilariously funny, it has potential to be offensive. I’ll try to be as non-offensive as I can as I relate to you what had me rolling on the floor, and my husband giving me one of those head shakes with the hidden message of “you asked for it by laughing. Now you get yourself out of this one.”
After dinner Timmy (6), was playing with some phonics tiles. Earlier I helped him write the sentence CAN YOU JUMP? He sounded out the CAN and JUMP, I just helped with the YOU.
While I sorted the color tiles with Gracie, I heard Timmy sounding out a new word. In his innocent, cute little voice he made the “fffff….” sound, then the long “u” sound and the last letter was “K”.
He proceeded to sound out the word perfectly! (Guess I’m a better phonics teacher than I thought.) I couldn’t help but giggle at the bad word I hadn’t heard in years, and he continued saying it with more enthusiasm. Rolling with hysterics, I then tell Timmy to go show his dad what word he spelled. And Timmy did, saying it over and over again. Finally, after I was able to control myself I said, “enough. That’s a very, very, very, bad word.”
He stopped but was still curious as to what it meant so I said it was as bad as …then I said some bathroom word I can’t even remember what it was. He laughed a little and hasn’t said the word since.
Epilogue/prologue? Growing up in my home THE word was used quite often, every day in fact by my mother, myself and my sister. Even now, though grandma is a saved by Grace, Born Again Christian she lets one of her expletives fly and I look in shock, especially when it’s in front of my children. Luckily, my children are innocent enough not to realize a bad word when they hear it! Hopefully next time I’ll be wise enough NOT to laugh.
UPDATED:
I started to say this in the comment section, but thought it might be better said here:
Just to set the record straight, over the course of my Christian adult life, I too have used many “choice” words in anger, meant to hurt the one they were aimed at. I think the condition of our hearts is much more important than the actual words we use. “From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” That scripture is always convicting for me since it’s my mouth that usually gets me into trouble.
