Jocko Podcast - Jocko Underground: Addressing Evil In The World with Kids.

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

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This is the Jocco Underground Podcast, number 192, sitting here with Echo Charles. We have got some questions, life questions, relationship questions, leadership questions, raising children questions, jujitsu questions, working out questions. We've got a bunch of questions. And we get them every week and we answer them every week. So let's get into it. First one. How do you approach swear word usage by kids?

Did you allow your children to swear and if so from what age in what circumstances? Did you swear around your kids? Also how do you teach children that there is evil in the world and that it can be in unfair place? We have two boys seven year old and six year old. So swearing I didn't swear in front of my kids and I actually did swear really in front of my wife I still don't like get crazy swearing in front of my wife but I do swear more around my kids not because they're adults and what have you. Don't get me wrong because I did swear

all the time in the teams like totally every third word was an F-bomb or some other profane word. And I will still swear at this time with the boys, you know? We're doing whatever. But when I'm interacting with someone on anything outside of like my kind of direct crew, then I generally speaking, I don't really swear. and now you know when you're raising your kids you might your kids be swearing you know at some point

i remember one time i took my i was out camping with my son uh for his maybe it was like eighth or ninth birthday or something like that may no maybe his 10th birthday anyways he's with his buddies and i'm in the RV and his buddies and him are in the tent on the beach and i woke up early because we're going to go surfing and it's cold but I I go walk over to their tent and I hear that they're already up and they're like swearing and I'm kind of like okay you know it's the boys you know the 10 year old boys getting wild and I unzipped the tent and I look in there and they're like they're like horrified yep and I go put your fucking wetsuits on and they were like oh yeah

You know, it's one of those moments. So, you know, again, it's like a little relationship thing, right? What are you getting all bent out of shape? Because your kids said a bad word. So I don't think you need to get crazy with it, but they definitely need to understand that it's suboptimal communication methodology, right? If you have to swear all the time, it's, there's better ways to get things done. And I would err on the side of not swearing.

But, you know, I don't make a huge deal out of it, you know. More like you don't want your kids to swear all the time. just need to recognize that it's not a good look, right? It's not a good way to gain respect. Not that occasional F-bomb at the right moment can't get the attention of someone again, but if you're swearing all the time, then it won't get anyone's attention. So yeah, that's kind of that. As far as teaching them about evil in the world, I think it's just a slow exposure to reality. Like what you see in the news. What you see in the news, I think you expose. to them over time and you kind of start off with lesser evil and start off with you know

there's people stealing things and people being people hurting other people people fighting other people people hurting animals people doing some kind of sadistic behavior then abuse physical abuse, mental abuse, you know, sexual abuse. You got to tell kids about this stuff. And then you get into like murderers. And you know, you can first explain that, you know, there's a crime of passion where the husband's mad at the wife and he kills her.

And then you can start talking about serial kill. Like so, but again, you kind of have to do this over time where they can understand and they're not overwhelmed by it. It's wrong to not let them understand that these things are in the world. but it's also wrong to expose them at a young age when they can't really comprehend it. So I think you got to do exposure therapy, kind of just to start off slow and grow from there.

You know, I've talked about this before, but I think one of the best things that ever happened to my son was we saw a, again, we were surfing early in the morning, we saw a tweaker at five in the morning, just as the son's coming up or six in the morning, just as the sun's coming up, and this guy has just tweaked out on drugs. and he's being arrested.

And he's acting totally insane, screaming. He's got the spit hat on, and he's got, like, ripped pants and no shirt. He's all beat up and just dirty. And he's saying crazy things. And my son, again, at this time, he was probably, like, seven or eight. And he's like, like, Dad, what is going on with that guy? And I said, that guy's on drugs.

That's what drugs does to you. That left a mark, you know what I mean? Yeah. So I think that you have to kind of do exposure therapy with your kids. And, you know, it's another good thing is like movies. You know, the rated R movie thing. How old were your kids when you started to let them watch rated R movies? Yeah, it was, I mean, young technically, but it's not that.

That's not how I categorize it. Like, oh, you can watch this. It's rated R. It's like, totally depends on the movie. What the actual R rating is for. Exactly right. Like Deadpool? My son as soon as it came out

He was like four or five No kidding is that right at all? Big time Because of what? Wildly inappropriate stuff There's like there's violence but it's sensationalized They're swearing there's like sex jokes And like just it's really flagrant But given my son's personality

That's not gonna affect him He's just gonna think it's funny But then if I show him like I don't know like a Friday the 13th or something like this It'll mess with him You know, so it depends. It depends on, you know, his personality at what stage.

Did your kid like scary movies? Do your kids like, no? My daughter does, but my son does not. Coach Hannah. Yeah. My daughter. She watched scary movies, but they like horrify her, but she likes to watch them. Yeah.

That's real. Yeah. She like, when she starts talking about him, you can tell if they landed. The way she says, there's a movie called Mid-Somar. Oh, yeah. I actually haven't seen it. Yeah. But the way they.

that she says the name mid-somar, you're like, oh, she has PTSD. She knows she'll be like, she'll like shift her positioning. So, so, but I do think that you can show kids movies, you know, because they're fictional. Yeah. And you can say, hey, look, this isn't real, but this does happen.

And then you can get, then you can move to movies that are based on reality. And then eventually you can show them to a documentary, right? And you can, but I think you just gotta slowly introduce things kids over time. Yeah. And like I said, I do believe this as of right now. I do believe that it does depend on the movie because that mid-somar, like that movie's not, I didn't, I don't think that one was actually scary. It was disturbing, they're real disturbing, but it wasn't scary. Like, you didn't, you didn't leave the movie and like be scared. But back in the day when you watch

Friday the 13th or Candyman, you ever watched Candyman? That first one? Holy come. I was in like eighth grade or something. And, right, you say his name in the mirror like three times or something or five that I don't know and he'll appear behind you and kill you bro it was bray I couldn't go in like the bathroom anymore like by myself at night it was hard that's scary you know so it's different we watched the exorcist when I was a kid you know as a little kid you're like oh my god so but I think you can utilize movies as a introduction to things and that that way they're a little bit more controlled you know what the movie's about right so I think you could do that too but and I think my kids were watching rated our movies maybe around 12 and you know again same as you like

generally speaking i think my youngest daughter watched black hawk now with she was pretty really young you know so and that is that's where we're at does black cop down have any like disturbing things that it's got people you know getting their legs blown off and be dying i mean it's it's definitely violent to high violence yeah bloodshed So yeah, it feels like it doesn't play on a kid's fears as much as like a Friday the 13th that there's a crazy maniac unknown unseen killer out there in the darkness. Do you remember Uncle Fester? I think he's from the Adams family. I had a friend in the SEAL teams that would have nightmares that there was like an Uncle Fester type person.

That was going to kill him. And the thing was, it was like he was way bigger and way strong. Uncle Fester this uncle Fester type character was way bigger and way stronger and if you think about that's pretty horrifying You know like you and I you know we train jiu jitsu we left you know we're in shape We have concealed carry like we're you know we're kind of like in the game we are the danger we are the danger as they say right Cheese ball but if you start thinking like oh there's someone that's even to the endth degree and it was kind of superhuman kind of a superhuman scenario. I ended up thinking it was like in the book Blood Meridian,

which I don't think you've read. But in Blood Meridian there's a character called The Judge. And he's sort of the same way. He's like bigger, stronger, cat-like reflexes. And you're like, bro, this is kind of, you're kind of at the whim of this dude from a physical way, you know? And I think that's why my friend was so scared with this Uncle Fester type dude.

But if you're a kid, pretty much everyone's like that. Yeah. Pretty much everyone's bigger and stronger than you. So it's pretty horrifying. Yeah. Yeah. It's true.

What, um, the swearing thing, I kind of went back and forth on it. And I like, like I think your way is kind of optimal, I think. Because I, I do swear,

but not that much around the kids. And I'm, I'm going to make it a point. And this is where I arrived at where, I don't want it to be like normalized, you know, like really, because I,

in fact, I wish you was less normalized for me. Me actually freaking now that I'm however old I am, there's a lot of things looking back that I thought were cool because it was fine. You know, my parents did this or whatever and I turned off and I realized maybe I didn't turn out as fine as I could have been. You know, if there's a handful of things that were normalized that I'm like, but I think he kind of jammed me up to be honest with you. But the swearing one wasn't a big deal, but every once in a while, I was like, I think I shouldn't have been swearing, you know, like that kind. Like there's this at it was at the muster and it was actually some people that we know and they were uh so there's the daughter the dad you know these people we completely know them but i'm not going to say their name just for privacy but um there's a daughter the dad and the mom i didn't know they were all related i knew him individually and the daughters maybe 20s early 20s so young way younger than me you know um and then the mom and dad are slightly older than me so anyway i'm like she goes oh

hi, you know? And I'm like, I was like, shoot, have I met you? Right? Like, and they're all standing in front of me, but I didn't know they're all really. So she's like, oh, yeah, I met you last time. And I'm like, yeah, and I'm trying to figure it out. And I'm like, yeah. And she's like, yeah, I was like, yeah, at this other time. And I was like, oh, wait, was it at this time? She was like, no, no, no. I was like, are you sure? She's like, yeah. I go, are you fucking with me? And she's like, no, no. And then the mom and the dad were right there and the mom you could tell she was like hey like you shouldn't talk to my daughter like that like that was a vibe she didn't say that but that was the vibe because she goes uh this is our daughter like interrupted the conversation you know and me like

bro i'll say that to anybody you know all my friends like are you fuck with me right now like asking you know and then i remember thinking that swearing kind of came out real naturally you know like almost like a default that like that's how you know I was like shoot maybe swearing was normalized a little bit too much is what I'm saying so and that's just one time I mean maybe there's another time or whatever so it's not a huge problem but I'm saying if it wasn't normalized if my default was like you whereas like I you kind of only swear under certain circumstances try to you yeah yeah and the default was no swearing right I wouldn't add to endure that you know and I feel weird like

every time I see her at the mustard stuff I feel like kind of like oh shoot you know So I try to be extra nice and stuff like that, but I'm like, man. But yeah, so I think I'm with you now. Like, my kids will hear me swear, but I'm not just swearing like it's all good. They don't swear at all. They think like, I think like a lot of kids who are, you know, have. They'll get through it. But you know how like your boy when he was swearing?

Yeah, yeah. He's like my. And how kind of I felt when I was real young where I was like, hey, when no one's around and I say it, it's like, ooh, so crazy, right? Or whatever. Oh, my kids are totally like that. Like if there's a song going on and they're swearing in it, they'll like kind of look at me like, oh, that was crazy, you know, or whatever. My oldest daughter ratted out some of her friends or some for kids at school or something when she was probably in like third or fourth grade or something for saying the S word to my wife.

The S-H-I-T? No. It was. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen. go to jocco underground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this. We're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms.

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