jueves, 16 de junio de 2016

Mom, Dad! Why I can’t say swearwords? The child’s linguistic development

Corrections are welcome!!!! And needed for sure!

La versión en español está una publicación abajo!

Last weekend I was at the beach with some friends, all of them modern parents, and they started talking about the questions their sons are making to them about life and surrounding, of course they talk about swearwords. We believe that saying or not swearwords is a moral decision, and generally we answer to children that they can say it at home but never at school, or on front of their grandpa. The truth is that swearwords are over a moral conflict, they represent a conflict about linguistic and cognitive development, not only for kids, also for their parents and other adults who say them.

All languages have swearwords and synonyms, ¿where is relation? I don’t really know the use of swearwords in English but I’ll try to explain the point with Spanish translation. In Spanish we have many, a lot of words to call a person who is presumptuous, same as in English, pretentious, conceited, overweening, and much more, but we must say that any synonym is identical, we don’t say that a fly expire or go out, right? Unless we are joking, expire, go out, die, are synonyms but are not used the same way. With presumptuous and it’s synonyms is the same, are not really for the same kind of person, every synonym has it own little dissimilar meaning, so, in Spanish we have a swearword that reduce all of them, “mamón” that means “suker” or “mammon”, means a little child who can’t do any thing but cry and get feed by his mom breast. The problem is that this swearword replace all the others and the others acute differences. Is the same with other swearwords, replace many other words.   

This can seems harmless, but the fact of get the brain watchful about the words we need or will be needed to describe or explain some situations, is a very important skill on a cognitive level, even for an adult, lets remember that our body is a machine that if is not used gets rust. So, when this skills are requested to a child, their function gets more important, because childhood is the age when the first and more important brain functions are getting developed thanks to the requires and challenges he is exposed. If a kid learns to identify the persons who are presumptuous as the same as someone who is conceited or overweening, and get them all in one only word as “suker”, then its brain is not going to get powerful. A kid who ask his parent if Tony Stark is presumptuous or smug, and listen back “better boastfully”, making his vocabulary richest, is not going to grow the same as a kid who say that Ironman is a “suker”. 

And of course, linguistics is not only about just language, is also about psychological development. The problems solutions are also learned since childhood. If a kid get used to solve its problems saying “fuck your self”, is very probable that he will never concentrate on make a retrospection about what happened about that problem, where it comes from, he will not get into his feelings or sensations. The words are not only tools to call thinks, furniture or food, words really helps on self-communion, and world communion, that is why is very important to think over act, even when you’re angry. Here some exercises that are going to help even adults.  
Imagine a woman who is suffering an amygdale kidnapping (the amygdale is the brain part that acts only with instinct “attack-run”), furious with her husband because he forgot the anniversary, she start to shout him “you are an idiot! Damned!” What happens next is a very common drama. Now imagine the big difference that can make if she listen her prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that reason), she get calm and say: “When you forget our anniversary makes me feel you don’t care about me at all.” Of course it sounds a cold reaction, more for Latin-Americans, but to be honest is very obvious which situation is closer to solve the problem and which is going to make it worst. Now, talking about kids is more important, because they will learn to be more or less aggressive, to solve or to make worst the problems. Much more, imagine that you see your kid very sad, you get close and ask him what is happening, you don’t want to listen “I’m fucked”, you need more information right? So be analytic with their own feelings can help them to solve issues. Top down I leave a Harvard University research about how child’s development contribute even with economy. 

For all this reasons is necessary to educate and give children a very extensive vocabulary, that will not only help to develop his brain connections, will also help to make more rational their reactions, to reflex about the surrounding and to give a name to their feelings. So when your kid asks you why he can’t say swearwords, you can answer easily and tell him that his brain is not going to develop right if he/she reduce everything on one only word that is also aggressive. Of course you also need to leave him to talk as he/she wants with his/her friends, is important to his/her personality and social relations, and more, is important that he/she learn to choose different language on different places. 

Harvard research:

More about chid development:
ps://www.scribd.com/doc/142402378/CHOMSKY-DEL-DESARROLLO-DEL-LENGUAJE-EN-LOS-NINOS-pdf">https://www.scribd.com/doc/142402378/CHOMSKY-DEL-DESARROLLO-DEL-LENGUAJE-EN-LOS-NINOS-pdf