A Four Letter Word...

My son Logan has really grown to love baseball. This past winter he discovered the movie, "The Sandlot" after his dad brought it home. It was one of Josh's favorite movies growing up. This movie has been around for a long time. I hadn't watched it in years and didn't think twice about letting my three year old watch it. ( I remembered it was about a group of buddies that played baseball all summer and were afraid of the dog that lived behind the fence.) "The Sandlot" soon became his favorite movie. He loved the huge dog, the "Big Bambino," and all of the baseball action. On the weekends he watched it, on long road trips he watched it, while making dinner he watched and the list goes on.

After it was already too late, I became aware of some of the language that was used in the movie. A couple of times the phrase, "Oh S***!" was used and I think H***. I was not impressed. I didn't think it was a good idea for Logan to be watching a movie with that kind of language. Now, not to throw my hubby under the bus, but he didn't think it was a big deal. He really didn't believe that Logan would pick up on the words since he doesn't hear it at home. Well, this weekend that theory was proved incorrect.

On Sunday when I got home from being away since Friday, Josh brought to my attention that while Logan was watching "The Sandlot" he repeated the "Oh, S***!" phrase after hearing it on the screen. He immediately told him that he wasn't allowed to use that word and that if he or I heard it again there would be a harsher punishment.

This evening we were saying good-bye to some friends at the front door and I realized that Logan hadn't put our science experiment away, (we put water in a bag and recorded the water level, and then froze it to see if the level changed). The ice was starting to melt and leaking all over the table. I handed it to him and asked him to put it in the sink. As he took the bag from me, he quietly said, "Oh S***, that's cold!" At first, I didn't want to believe what I just heard come out of his mouth, but Josh had heard it too. My first reaction was to laugh (of course, not so he could see) and then realized that "The Sandlot" will have to be put away until my son knows better. After our friends left, we had a "teaching moment" and let him know that he won't be able to watch the movie anymore because of the phrase that he had learned. We told him that not even adults should say those words and that our words need to honor Jesus. He was really sad, and once again gave me those big brown puppy dog eyes. He apologized and followed up with some kisses and hugs.

There are a couple of lessons here: 1) Always pre-screen the "oldie, but goodie" movies before you let your 3 year old watch it. 2) Go with your mommy intuition and after hearing about naughty words on a movie, don't continue letting your child watch it. 3) Brace yourself for many more "teaching" moments to come!