Daycare Worker Tells Little Girl She's Allowed To Cuss In The Bathroom — Her Mom Approved It
We all need to get things off our chest sometimes, no matter how old (or young) we are!
Yulai Studio, Bilanol / Shutterstock We all need an emotional release from time to time. Sometimes that means spewing out profanities, no matter how old we are.
That seemed to be the case for one little girl at daycare who couldn't stop cussing. Rather than punishing the child for her use of profanities, her teacher (and her mother as well) came up with a solution to allow the little girl to cuss freely without her classmates hearing it.
The little girl’s daycare teacher allowed her to cuss in the bathroom away from other students — and her mother approved of the idea.
When one of her young students couldn't stop dropping cuss words while under her care, Tina Midkiff, a mother of four and a daycare owner, had a unique solution.
"Since we've had some issues with cussing, you're only gonna cuss in the bathroom," she informed the little girl. "Mommy said it's okay for you to do this in the bathroom, that way you don't get in any more trouble."
Midkiff secretly recorded the little girl (with her mother’s approval) during one of her bathroom cussing sessions and the results were priceless. The daycare teacher shared the hilarious footage to TikTok, where it has been viewed over 16 million times.
“We are not cussing anywhere but in the bathroom, and we’re not gonna give the finger anywhere but the bathroom,” Midkiff reminded the little girl as she took her inside. “We can’t teach our little friends that we’re doing this.”
The little girl happily obliged, and Midkiff allowed her the space to say all of the cuss words she could think of. The second the door closed, she began aggressively whispering cusses and phrases with cursing in them, before telling Midkiff that she was done, giving her permission to open the door again.
“Did you get it out of your system?” Midkiff asked the little girl, cupping her face in her hands. She dropped a kiss on the toddler’s forehead after she happily nodded, agreeing that she would not cuss in front of her classmates anymore.
In a follow-up video, Midkiff clarified that despite the slew of swear words the little girl let out in the bathroom, she wasn't quite as profane in front of her teachers or other students.
“We were all shocked at what she said,” Midkiff revealed. “Those are not words that she says every day. Those are the words she chose to say in her safe space.”
She added that within the safe space they created for her, no one — including the teacher, her mother, and viewers online — is allowed to judge. "That is her safe space. We gave that safe space to her," Midkiff said. She cannot be punished for anything that she said in that video.”
Midkiff continued, saying that punishment had not worked for this little girl, which is why they ultimately resorted to such a unique solution. "She is not the kid that responds to timeouts and stuff like that," Midkiff said, "so we had to go outside the box and look in to see what was the best for the child.”
Most people online found the video to be hysterically funny, noting that they too need private moments to let some cuss words loose.
“Me in the bathroom at my retail job acting out how I really should have responded to a customer,” one TikTok user commented. “Fast forward 15 years … she’s still going to be doing this in the bathroom at work,” another user wrote. “Baby girl needed to get all of it out of her system," a third user added. "I love that she had the freedom to express herself, but who ticked her off?"
While some may believe that swearing around children or letting them repeat cuss words is wrong, there are actually a few benefits to it.
Dr. Emma Byrne, a neuroscientist and the author of “Swearing Is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language,” appeared on “Good Morning Britain” to explain why allowing your young children to cuss can help them.
According to Byrne, teaching children swear words also means teaching them the appropriate time and places to use them. This can help them make better decisions about how to choose their words toward others more carefully, especially if they know the meaning behind them and the impacts they hold.
Byrne also asserted that the first people children should hear and learn about cussing from are their parents.
“If we don’t talk about swearing with our kids, they learn swearing just from their classmates on the playground," she said. "They’re not gonna have a sense of how swearing affects people’s feelings, but also how swearing isn’t just directly correlated with necessarily being awful to people.”
Like the little girl in the video, everyone gets overwhelmed from time to time and needs a few moments where they can scream and curse to release their pent-up frustration. Uttering curse words in response to pain or stress can provide a cathartic release, helping individuals feel more relieved.
Midkiff agreed with Byrne's point, adding that even when you think they aren't listening, kids hear everything. "Whether it's in public, it's a cuss word on the radio, it's a cuss word on the TV, or it's a conversation you're having, they're listening. They hear it."
No matter how hard some parents attempt to prevent it, their children are eventually going to hear cuss words, whether in school, at the grocery store, on the television, or in their own homes from other family members and visitors. Instead of ridiculing them for swearing every so often, parents should use it as a learning opportunity to teach their children more about cussing, and the appropriate times and places to use them.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.