Last night, at the American Legion -- which, may I add, offered a menu consisting of beef jerky, cashews, and peanut butter cups, along with walls that were heavily carpeted -- I was talking to some friends who are moms of teenagers. One of them said she was irritated by her 16-year-old son dropping the f-bomb all the time. F-- this F--- that. And she couldn't get him to stop. She wanted to get across the point that you can't go thru life adding the f-word to every sentence with every person you meet. She knew that she had to do something beyond grounding him, or taking away his air guitar game, or whatever, to get results.
One evening, when all of his friends were at their house and her son kept saying it, she yelled: "If you don't stop saying 'fuck' every two minutes, I'm gonna grab your dad and fuck him right here!"
The kid was mortified. His friends were disgusted. And her son has not dropped the f-bomb since.
After I picked my jaw up off of the floor, I complimented her on her results-oriented approach. So I felt it my duty to pass it along to other parents, aunts or uncles.
Hilarious. Filed for future use.
Posted by: Peeved Michelle | 21 January 2007 at 05:14 PM
Dr. Guarriello would like to say that he finds this anecdote a perfect example of the theme of his forthcoming book: Smarten The F Up: Creative Parenting In The 21st Century. Available soon at booksellers near you and, of course, Amazon.com.
Posted by: Tom Guarriello | 21 January 2007 at 08:53 PM
fuckin awesome!
Posted by: Kull | 22 January 2007 at 08:17 AM
Nice title, doc.
Here's another one from a "responsible" - ahem - auntie...
Teenage boys: Hey, guess what movie we're watching?!
Me: Looks like Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. Does this make you want to drop acid?
Teenage boys: No!
Me: Good. Because acid is bad, mmmkay?
Teenage boys' mom: If you do acid, I'll cut your balls off!! Stick to pot!
Posted by: blaugra | 22 January 2007 at 11:20 AM
Ouch..tough message, because as we all know pot is a gateway drug to other pyschadelics!
Posted by: Kull | 22 January 2007 at 03:17 PM
oh - I am absolutely going to use this. I'll let you know how it goes.
Posted by: stace | 22 January 2007 at 04:27 PM
I was amazed by this approach.I have haerd many parenting tips but none like this one.Hopefully my osn is not using the f- word so I wouldn't need to use this tip for now. :)
Posted by: Cara Fletcher | 10 July 2007 at 11:09 AM