They make it near impossible to hear her at times, and they’re very distracting.

I’m not sure if our instructor realizes just how loud they are. They do for a few minutes, but, being little kids, they quickly get lost in their play and become loud again. So far, when the children get particularly loud, some students (not me) have made polite remarks (think “Sounds like they’re having fun!”), and the instructor has briefly left, presumably to ask the kids to quiet down. My professor doesn’t have a great microphone, and her teaching room is all hardwood floors and hard surfaces, so the acoustics are terrible and she can be difficult to understand, but to make it worse, her children play loudly in a nearby room for the entire class. The class requires a lot of listening and speaking and is entirely taught in the foreign language. One of my instructors of a 300-level foreign language class has at least two young kids who seem to be between 3 and 6 (these are my best guesses). I know everyone is trying their best to adjust to online teaching and learning, and I’m wondering what expectations are reasonable when your professor is a parent of young children. If the word was bad enough, I don’t think I would be able to stay calm and wait for him to stop, but it seems inappropriate to snap at him, “Never say that word again,” without explanation. So my question is: Should I have taken this opportunity to explain what curse words are, what they mean, and why we don’t say them? I’m also terrified he will discover a word way worse than the F word. After a few minutes he stopped and hasn’t said the word again. Even though listening to my beautiful boy drop the F-bomb like a sailor made me sweat, I kept a straight face. However, last week he invented a “new word” that rhymes with a cartoon character he likes named Buck and went around the house using the new word again and again. Until recently I’ve enjoyed his creativity very much. My 5-year-old LOVES to make up his own words and definitions.

The 5-year-old is learning about rhymes in pre-kindergarten, and the 6-year-old is focusing on rhymes as part of his IEP, so we talk about rhymes all day every day. I’m sure this game is completely innocent and there isn’t any racial motivation behind Ben’s role and name, but I can’t stop questioning if I need to intervene, or at least suggest they pick a new name for their pirate dog. But I can’t stop wondering if I should have said or done something more. I was not delighted when he told me that in the game, he and Sam are the pirates and Ben, the only Black student in their class, is their dog-named Oreo! Eek! I didn’t want to make a big deal of it, so I just asked if Ben was OK with his role in the game and moved on. When I started asking him about what they play, he described a pirate game. He tells my husband and I every day that he plays with “Sam” and “Ben,” two other boys in his class. His teachers have praised his academic work and said he’s a good friend. My kindergartner, “James,” has gotten off to a wonderful start at his new school. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group. Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column.

Feedy word game