“I’m stupid.”

What?

My 3-year-old son said this yesterday.

I said he is absolutely not stupid.

He said it again. Then just “stupid.”

Please stop saying that word, I said. Then I queried some. It seemed that a friend at school had called someone stupid, and it appeared the friend had said it to Alexander’s friend. It bothered him, clearly.

School can be tough, as we all know. I shudder to think of my kids hearing all the mean things that get tossed around schools every day.

But the word “stupid” isn’t confined to bullies in the lunchroom. We say it at work all the time.

It’s on TV (watch a few minutes of the AIG coverage today and you’ll hear it countless times, I’m sure). Questions are stupid, ideas are stupid, politicians are stupid. Really, can we escape this word? Is it realistic to tell a kid it’s a bad word not to be used?

So while it’s easy to tell my son that he’s not stupid, he’s smart, I found it much harder to explain “stupid.” I said it was a “bad word” because I knew that would make sense to him, but that wasn’t really accurate. Bad words are a different category. This word has value in certain contexts, but is just mean in others. It’s a difficult distinction to make to a kid.

It’s like the semantic equivalent of explaining that we bounce soccer balls outside, not in the house.

What’s terrible is hearing your kid says he’s stupid.