Have you ever had your mouth washed out with soap? I have.

Back in the ’50s, before parents feared lawsuits from children that’s how kids were disciplined. They washed out your mouth with soap if you cursed.

They also used switches, sticks, and other assorted methods to teach us civility and etiquette. It wasn’t very effective, but it sure was memorable.

A female friend recently admitted to me that she cursed and used too many four-letter words when her kids dilly-dallied, didn’t make their beds, or did a variety of other slovenly, lazy, sloppy things that kids want to do.

She asked me how she could curb her use of foul language.

I have wanted to do a column on four-letter words, so this was an opportune moment. Perhaps if I explored this topic long enough, I might be able to help my dear friend correct her wayward ways.

The first thing I recall about the use of dirty words is the funny skit that George Carlin once did on “The Seven Dirty Words.”

Carlin had been instructed never to say certain words when he did his stand up routine on television. TV is fairly strict about this and one is not allowed to say ‘f..k’, ‘s..t’, ‘c..t’, ‘p..s’, ‘c..k’, and a few others.

Television and radio are serious about this. Years ago, I had a radio show, and one guest cursed a lot during the show. We had a seven-second delay, so thankfully, they all got beeped out, or the station would have been fined $25,000.

The question is, why do people curse at all?

Cursing may be used to emphasize a point, get someone’s attention or express frustration or rage. I was a very angry child and did so much cursing that my father nicknamed me “Tom, Tom, the Atom Bomb.”

It was easy to explain my anger since I had an older brother who was bigger and smarter than me, and I would regularly express my impotence with rageful curse words.

As an example, when we played chess, he would quickly win and say ‘checkmate,’ and I would then say, “Holy S..t!!”

Kids do a lot of cursing. One of my favorite scenes in cinema was in the film “Fanny and Alexander” by Ingmar Bergman. Fanny was maybe 13 years old and Alexander was 11 and were siblings who had just lost their loving father to a sudden heart attack.

As they walk along in the funeral procession, the camera gives us a close-up of the two children close-up, softly repeating the phrase “s..t’ ‘p..s’ ‘f..k. over and over. Pretty funny.

Since I’m extremely comfortable with cursing I asked my friend why she wanted to stop cursing. She told me it wasn’t a good look and that cursing was a sign of having a weak vocabulary.

She may be right about those points. The funniest stand up comic on earth is Jerry Seinfeld who never uses ‘blue’ humor (dirty words.) I’ve always felt that Seinfeld is extremely gifted verbally and is well read.

But if my friend developed a better vocabulary and used more sophisticated words to discipline her kids, it would have to sound something like this.

”Darling, would you mind tidying and arranging your room a bit. It’s getting a bit cluttered and littered and I would appreciate it greatly and offer my sincere thanks if you would keep it less sullied. The sight of your rumpled bed is terribly perturbing to me.”

If she still sees no results with this more articulate form of discipline, I would recommend considering one of the following alternatives:

1) Mother’s tactics: Mom would simply go into the backyard, break off a good-sized branch from a tree and shave off the leaves. She would practice whipping it in the air and if it made the right swooshing sound she brought it inside and placed it atop the frig and say to me and my four devilish siblings that the switch will be used if the household rules were not obeyed.

This is discipline circa the 1950s. Of course given the legal expertise that the modern child seems to possess, one will also have to consult an attorney to gain clearance on this method.

2) Reinforcement: This is referred to as token economies or what some children refer to as bribery.

If the kids do what they are told, you give them a reward. For example, if they keep their room clean and get into the car in a timely fashion, you say thank you and give them a treat or some money at week’s end.

3) Response Cost: This is one of the few behavior modification techniques that seems to work.

You explain to the children that if they fail to clean their room and ignore your pleas that “it’s dinner time,” they will lose some privileges like using their phones.

Since taking a kid’s phone away is comparable to taking heroin away from an addict, rest assured that this is a powerful technique.

The result of using any combination of these methods will be positive.

You will have a cleaner house and more well-behaved children. You will have less need to curse, which will, in turn, improve your self-image, enhance your vocal self-image you a better role model and reduce guilt or shame.

Of course, these new parenting interventions may lead your kids to curse more, and they may start to say things like “I hate you, mommy!” or “I’m calling a lawyer!”

You can regard all that as shallow, meaningless threats because any lawyer is going to demand a hefty retainer, which your kids will never be able to afford.

And furthermore, if the kids really start to curse a lot out of frustration you can always revert to my mother’s technique of the Ivory soap.