Do you tell your kids to shut up?

[happysmileylady 19,803]

Particularly if they are early elementary?

 

eta: I specifically mean using the words “shut up.”  

[Garga 23,774]

Growing up my family would say shut up to each other, but you’d have to hear the tone.  It was done in a playful tone and no one felt that they were actually being told to shut up.  Imagine someone playfully saying, “Oh, stop it!”  “Oh, shut up!”  Kids could say it to adults, adults could say it to kids, and adults could say it to adults.  But again, the tone was always light and silly.

But for my own kids, no.  It’s too easy to for it to slip out of playful and into aggressive and other people don’t understand when they hear it and I didn’t want to deal with being judged.

[Spryte 14,265]

No.

[SJ. 1,017]

Nope.

[JenneinCA 1,544]

No.  I have a child that absolutely can not read tone of voice.  This child is easily upset and I watch my words very carefully.  (Same child can not read their own tone of voice either.  It makes conversation difficult.)

[PrairieSong 4,540]

No, never. I say please be quiet or you need to be quiet now. I was taught that "shut up" is rude.

[Ananda 367]

Honestly, yes.  But only after asking them nicely to be quiet 3 times.  

-1st time: I get their attention, then gently say "Please quiet down, mommy's ears a tired." (or whatever my reason is)

-2nd time: I get their attention, then seriously, but not aggressively, "Please quiet down, the noise is frustrating me."  I might suggest a quieter activity or whatever might be helpful.

-3rd time: "Boys. Shhh. Quiet. Now."  I say this part sternly.  Then gently,  "If you can't play quietly, you will have to be separated."

-4th time: "Shut up!"  I yell this & they immediately go silent.  Then calmly, "please go to separate rooms."

[gardenmom5 29,449]

No.

I'd tell them to turn down their volume.  They also understood better what it actually meant.

[JessReplanted 1,021]

No.

(Ok, honestly, it has come out of my mouth a couple times in moments of perceived crisis.)

We consider that to be pretty mean and insulting. We do say very direct things like: “Be quiet now” or even sometimes: “I need you to stop talking.”

(One of our kids has HF ASD and sometimes needs very direct instruction in order to respond.)

[SKL 51,422]

It's not my go-to phrase, but my kids have heard it in times of stress.  Not in public though.

When they were younger, it was usually "hush" or "be quiet."  Now I usually say "don't say another word" if I really want them to shut it.  It usually doesn't shut them up, though.  :P

[J-rap 13,786]

Of course not!

[Hen 760]

no, never!

[StellaM 94,409]

No. I'd say 'Can you be quiet please ?' or maybe, if seriously stressed 'Shush!'

[Arctic Mama 35,884]

Only when I totally lose my temper.  It’s not a phrase I say normally, but if I’ve asked several times or one of them is being a genuine jerk and I snap that’s what comes out.  We try to speak kindly and not use rude language if at all possible, as a default, but we are human and fail sometimes.

[nixpix5 4,764]

I have never used these words with my kids, husband or anyone else outside of when I would banter as a teen. It is so far removed from how I would ever treat another human that I cannot even picture these words coming out of my mouth. 

[LMD 7,661]

Yeah sometimes.

[Monica_in_Switzerland 9,927]

Only joking, and I'll say "shut it," which is basically the same thing.

 

If I really want quiet, I tell them to quiet down or else they will need to go to separate rooms and read.  Then I follow through.  Mostly.  

[chocolate-chip chooky 2,751]

I remember my eldest at a very young age whispered in my ear, "X said the sh word". Turns out she was referring to "shut up".

So, no. It was clearly taboo. 

As teens and young adults, it may occasionally be said in a jokey way, but most definitely never said seriously between any of us.

[Quill 49,040]

Not as a matter of level-minded word selection. It has escaped a few times. 

When I was growing up, everyone in my family said this all the time, except probably not my parents to each other. I didn’t even realize it was rude until my then-best friend would tell me not to say that to her - and even then, I didn’t really. I didn’t quit saying this habitually until adulthood. 

[ThisIsTheDay 4,772]

Never. I made a conscious effort to speak to my kids the same way that I would expect a preschool teacher to speak to them. And my kids weren't allowed to use that phrase either.

[Selkie 16,639]

Only in a joking way, when my kids and I are goofing around.

[Bluegoat 28,198]

I try not to.  I feel like it's at best borderline rude.  And even when it isn't, the kids seem to pick it up really fast and they aren't often discerning about using it.

But I fail somewhat regularly.  Usually when they just keep saying the same thing after I've closed the argument.

[marbel 22,910]

I didn't when they were little.  I knew most people considered it rude.  I grew up in a house where "shut up" was the same as "please be quiet" so I didn't have any objections to it.  But I didn't want the kids to pick it up.   Now that they are older, we will use it in a joking way. 

[mom@shiloh 1,534]

I don't say it. We consider it to be rude, and it's not said in our home. Plenty of other semi-rude or nasty or passive aggressive things slip out though, so it's not as if we're the "perfect" family, we're just not in the habit of 'shut up'.  :)  Another mom was using the expression quite liberally in the presence of my kids recently, and they were offended. Maybe I need to explain to them that some people don't consider it rude. 

[Junie 37,444]

I don't tell my kids "shut up," although I think it slipped out once or twice.

Growing up, my siblings and I told each other to shut up frequently.  We didn't think it was rude; it just indicated that the person who said it was really irritated.

 

One day when I was in high school, my little brother was irritating me, but only a little bit.  I wanted to tell him to be quiet and I wanted to tell him in Spanish because I was learning it at school.

Problem:  I didn't know how to say "Be quiet."  I only knew how to say "Shut up."  (And so did he, because I had taught him. ;)  )  So I told him "Callate por favor."  Shut up please.

He went crying to Mom and I thought I was going to get in trouble for making my brother cry.  I followed him up the stairs and heard him tell Mom, "She called me a por favor."   He didn't care that I had told him to shut up.  :)  And apparently I had forgotten to teach him the Spanish word for please.  

 

[Where's Toto? 11,584]

Only when goofing around.  If I've lost it, I usually end up shouting "Be Quiet!!"

When I was in 5th grade, I had a teacher who used to make you write "Shut Up" 500 times if you said it.  He also made you write for things like leaning your chair back.  I sat in the back against a wall of bookcases and I was the first person to have to write for that.  250 times "I will not lean back in my seat because it is dangerous to my health and because I didn't get special permission from Mr. McCann, I was wrong".  Yes, it's been almost 40 years and I still remember the entire sentence.  By the end, I could write the entire thing on one line.

[FuzzyCatz 15,373]

No.  Though they're teens now and I may have slipped a couple times.  

They do hear me swear while I am driving though.  LOL.  

[Katy 15,967]

I spent enough of my childhood in the South that I tend to yell, "Hush!" instead. 

I have been known to yell shut up at the Yorkie when the baby is napping though.

[Quill 49,040]

35 minutes ago, FuzzyCatz said:

No.  Though they're teens now and I may have slipped a couple times.  

They do hear me swear while I am driving though.  LOL.  

Right? 

My two young adults have gotten pretty casual about saying “@ss” because of such things. 

[Chris in VA 16,574]

No. I'm no saint, though. I yelled a lot at my boys when they were small. My girl, not so much--she had a more mature mom who was not as depressed.

I've let fly some cuss words, though...not really when they were elementary, but lately, my mouth has not been that clean. Usually when joking around, or when I'm mad at myself, not directed at a kid (they are big now, but even so). 

[Chris in VA 16,574]

38 minutes ago, FuzzyCatz said:

No.  Though they're teens now and I may have slipped a couple times.  

They do hear me swear while I am driving though.  LOL.  

 

1 minute ago, Quill said:

Right? 

My two young adults have gotten pretty casual about saying “@ss” because of such things. 

Oh my goodness. 

The other day, we were in the car, with my husband driving. 

Someone cut him off and my husband responded mildly but I shouted "@sshole!"

He's way more self-controlled than I am. 

[Serenade 2,795]

To one particular teen, yes.   I don't like it, but he pushes and pushes and pushes, and well, it happens.  

[Ktgrok 56,737]

7 hours ago, Arctic Mama said:

Only when I totally lose my temper.  It’s not a phrase I say normally, but if I’ve asked several times or one of them is being a genuine jerk and I snap that’s what comes out.  We try to speak kindly and not use rude language if at all possible, as a default, but we are human and fail sometimes.

This. It happens, but I'm not proud of it. 

[solascriptura 2,596]

No.  I do recall saying it once out of frustration and extreme stress.  I apologized profusely though.  I could see that my ds was shocked and hurt because "shut up" are not acceptable words to us.  

[~~~ 585]

nm

[AmandaVT 5,058]

No, I was raised to never say "shut up" to anyone. Ever. It was worse than a curse word in my house. That's kind of stuck with me. "That's enough!" tends to be my go-to when I'm about to lose my temper.

[Thatboyofmine 6,578]

Not at that age, no.   Once he was a teen, yep, he gets a ‘shut up’ sometimes.   

Shut up is not a bad word in our house or our foo.   I say plenty of words that many would consider ‘bad’, though even I draw the line at one word, lol.  I have my standards.  Lololololol  (where’s my favorite laughing emoticon when I need it?!?)

When ds was elementary age, he came home and said his friend had said the ‘c’ word.  Well, I probably don’t have to tell y’all what my mind went straight to, and I’m pretty sure my eyes about bugged out of my head.  Omg!  They’re saying that at 8 years old now?!?!  Well, I begged ds to tell me what the kid said.  He didn’t want to say it which freaked me out even more.  He finally told me..... ‘crap.’  The kid said crap!!  Jeez Louise, kid!    You couldn’t have led with that???     Needless to say, I had to hide my face so he didn’t see me laughing.   

[Seasons 91]

When ds12 is sassing and arguing with everything I say,  i will say "you need to shut your mouth right now"

[cintinative 2,315]

No, but they say it to each other despite my best efforts to curb it. I try to say "please be quiet" or "you are being too loud; I can't hear" or something like that.  If they persist in being too loud I will state the obvious with something like, "You all are being too loud and I cannot hear! Please be quiet!" Or the phrase I use at co-op "Tone down the crazy please!"

[myblessings4 23,950]

9 hours ago, SKL said:

It's not my go-to phrase, but my kids have heard it in times of stress.  Not in public though.

When they were younger, it was usually "hush" or "be quiet."  Now I usually say "don't say another word" if I really want them to shut it.  It usually doesn't shut them up, though.  :P

This.  I don't like to say it, but sometimes out of frustration, it slips out.  Dh absolutely cannot stand the phrase, so I have tried really hard not to use it and to not let dc say it.

[umsami 30,423]

Usually I say "be quiet" or "lower your volume"....but yeah....when super frazzled...and all four are triggering me...it can come out. 

[EmseB 12,892]

No. I lose my temper more than I care to admit, but I don't tell them to shut up. It's a bad word in our house. One time one of my kids said, "Oh, just shut up," to the baby who was crying while we were driving and i pulled over to give him a lecture about it.

I can't say why it bothers me soknow much, but it just sounds so hateful to my ears.

[Greta 8,654]

No, it's a very harsh phrase to my ears.  Just yesterday we were in a store where a mom was repeatedly scolding her boys telling them to shut up over and over and over again, and it was extremely uncomfortable.  (In part because she was being a lot more loud and obnoxious than they were!  They were just being normal little boys.)

[TechWife 25,764]

No.

[Spryte 14,265]

I said no earlier, but I want to add that I don’t say, “shut up,” to anyone.  To say that I don’t say it to my kids is true, but it’s broader than that.  It’s not a phrase that comes out of my mouth.  I grew up in a family that didn’t say it, it was considered rude, and it feels akin to cursing at someone.  

 

The harshest thing I will say to my non-stop narrator/talker, after many milder requests for quiet is:  “stop talking.”  Or “you need to stop talking now.”

[madteaparty 7,475]

They’re currently with me 24/7 (literally), they both narrate nonstop, so we play the quiet game often. Well, we try.  

[MysteryJen 14,460]

I wasn't allowed to say it growing up, and so I continued that with my kids. I really don't like it- it feels so rude and dismissive and hurtful when someone says it to me, so I try not to say it to anyone.

[sassenach 10,387]

No. We may say it playfully now that they're older, but never in anger. That phrase has the same feel of cursing to me.

[DawnM 25,023]

Only jokingly.  Like if my teens say, "Mom, haven't you already had enough chocolate cream pie?"  "Um, nope!  Shut up!" as I take a bite.

 

But never when they were younger and never in anger and never as a true "you need to be quiet now" thing, ONLY as a joke.  They are old enough now to get it.

[Indigo Blue 2,111]

No.

We say things to each other in a playful way and kid around, though. But I can't think of a time when we've ever said shut up in our house.

I should add that I'm extra mindful of what I say and how I say it as a result of my own childhood experiences. Knowing how things made me feel when I was younger is a huge factor when I'm contemplating what to say when I've been upset with either ds.