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My son came home early from the party.

Not too surprising, since my sons have come home early many times over the years. But this was a birthday party for one of his best friends who was about to leave on a mission and my son had stayed scarcely a half hour. “What happened?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he replied, retrieving his juggling pins and spinning them high overhead, “I just got tired of all the crude jokes the guys were telling and I got especially tired of the girls laughing at them.”

There’s been a lot of discussion about “locker room talk” these days. And plenty of finger pointing and blaming and frustration to go around. Bad behavior has existed for millennia, but only in the last quarter century has rude, crude behavior become commonplace in media– watched, listened to, mimicked and celebrated.

While I’m extraordinarily proud of Mormons for speaking out against misogyny, racism and bigotry in the midst of the U.S. election, “locker room talk” isn’t just a problem for “others.” The party my son walked away from was a group of LDS kids from excellent families who could recite the 13th Article of Faith by heart. My sons have witnessed similar behavior at Scout camps, in the MTC and on their missions.

We could blame the media, but we need to take responsibility. Many of us feel enlightened and cosmopolitan when catching an innuendo or laughing at a dirty joke, but we need to understand that if we laugh at Austin Powers, our sons may objectify women in the same way and our daughters may accept vulgar behavior.

Maybe it’s only talk. But words matter. Words change our thoughts and our thoughts drive our actions. Raising children who speak kindly, who would never talk in a crude way about women or make jokes about race or sexual orientation has been one of my highest priorities in parenting. I asked my two youngest sons why they’ve listened. I kind of love my 14 year old son Gabe’s response, “Because if we talked like that you’d be so disappointed and dad would break our legs.”

Rest assured, my husband would never beat his children (or anyone), but Gabe’s quip illustrates our expectations. Or maybe Yoda said it even better, “There is no try, only do.”

You can’t raise good kids by accident; you often need to swim against the tide. But you don’t have to be weird and you don’t have to be self-righteous.

I’m uncomfortable offering up advice or my family as an example (just means we’ll mess up tomorrow, right?). Writing about my weaknesses is much closer to my comfort zone. So next month I’ll write about my battle with my weight, or insecurity or my messy pantry. I can’t tell you what’s best for your family but I will let you know what works for us:

  1. Live wide open and in the light. Eat dinner together, play together, listen to music and watch movies and Youtube videos together. You’re going to mess up and watch things you wish you didn’t and your kids are probably going to make totally inappropriate jokes. But do it together and without shame and with simple explanations of “why we don’t talk like that.”  Avoid rules and habits that send your kids to their rooms or friends’ homes to watch movies or surf the internet. Make your family culture so happy and loving and open that no one wants to hang out with people talking dirty.
  2. Preach kindness. And pray for kindness and then preach it again. Roughly 95% of our Family Home Evening lessons over the years have focused on all the variations of “be nice.”
  3. Admit when you are wrong and apologize. For anyone over the age of twenty, much has changed in our lifetime. Many of us need to cultivate sensitivity along with our children. When we mess up, make a racist comment or repeat a joke we shouldn’t have, it’s important to own our mistake.
  4. Encourage your kids’ sense of humor. We laugh a lot at home, but at the absurdities of life– not at people (though we do laugh at each other a lot). When you cultivate genuine wit in your kids they don’t have to stoop to low humor and they don’t have to copy jokes from TV or movies.
  5. Make a family playlist. At our house, we all listen to the same music, we all have the same iTunes account. I’d rather step a little out of my comfort zone than lose my kids to headphones or listening in their room. And yes, we do have a few explicit songs from Maroon 5. We also have an edited version of ‘Hamilton’ which I adore.
  6. Ease up on other rules. Honestly, I don’t care if my kids make their beds before school or hang up their backpacks or come home right on time. I just care about the way they treat other people.
  7. Stay out of the locker room. Among my five boys and my daughter, we’ve participated in more than a dozen sports. All but one of my boys has dropped off a team because of excessively crude behavior from teammates and coaches. Obviously, there are many fabulous teams and coaches and not every locker room hides a cesspool, but there are times when it’s simply wise to leave.
  8. Choose people over electronics. Kids who spend plenty of time serving and playing with other human beings naturally develop more empathy and real relationships rather than the strange TV/movie/Internet ideal.

As I said, I can’t tell what’s best for your family. But I can tell you raising kind kids CAN be done and it can be done happily, with lots of dancing in the kitchen, laughter at the dinner table and spontaneous soccer games at the park.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

 

 

 

 


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