«Help, our son only speaks foreigners' German!»

Totally blatant! Correct your son without immediately panicking. The linguistic adjustment probably has more to do with adapting to the peer group than with the fact that your son no longer knows the correct wording. At home, you can remain correct German is spoken, namely the same German that is written at school. If the language on the school playground is occasionally very crass, this will not spoil your son's future in the long term.

By the age of 8, your son will usually know the basic grammar. It seems to be more a case of «crying with the wolves»: Your son is experimenting with schoolyard slang. For us girls back then, it was an American accent that we used to talk with for months - despite our German mother tongue - and fervently threw around «wrong» articles, sentence positions and intonations. At home, you can continue to offer supportive activities in the form of everyday conversations, (audio) books or films. Refrain from discussions about «the correct language», just give it neutrally: Yes, that's the verb. Or you can join in: Jo, voll de krasse Verb.

Just say «son'n Seich» when he says such nonsense and leave him his Jugo-German as a second foreign language. For your part, keep speaking to him the way you think is grammatically correct. I come from a Büezer family, and my father wasn't entirely familiar with nominative, genitive, dative and accusative either. I am. And now you can choose: whether you would have preferred a precocious smart arse like me or whether you want to keep your son after all.

