When my son was born, I drew a line in the sand. “No more swearing for me,” I declared. “This boy shall not be tainted by my foul language.” Then I went outside, pointed at a loud aeroplane flying overhead and involuntarily said the word “fucking”.

He’s nearly two now, and picking up new words at a staggering rate. He said “hippo” for the first time yesterday, just because someone said it within earshot of him once. And I swear far more than I say the word “hippo”. Either I stop now, or I face being judged in Tesco because the kid in my trolley keeps calling the Kellogg’s cockerel a wanker.

The expert tells me changing a habit this ingrained is tough, but not impossible

I latch on to two mentor figures. Kristen Janschewitz is an associate professor of psychology at Marist College, New York, and the co-author of a report entitled The Science Of Swearing. She tells me that changing a habit this ingrained is tough, but not impossible. “If you want to create new associations, change as many things as you can about your context,” she says. “Patterns of behaviour and cognition are prompted without your awareness, by cues from your body and your external environment.”

Thankfully, I am about to change my external environment completely. I’m busy decorating a house we are about to move into; the perfect place to break my habit. However, one of my decorating jobs involves stripping and sanding a bannister that has a lead basecoat. Whole days pass where swearwords account for 90% of my vocal output. At one point, and I realise this sounds like a lie, a builder working downstairs cranes his head into the hallway and shouts, “Stuart, you’ve stopped swearing. Are you dead?”

Fortunately, I have other options. Janschewitz puts me on to Richard Stephens, senior lecturer in psychology at Keele and author of Black Sheep: The Hidden Benefits Of Being Bad. Even though his book goes to great lengths to talk up the benefits of swearing – he claims it aids social cohesion, helps people cope with pain and demonstrates higher linguistic fluency – Stephens admits that it probably isn’t great to expose young ears to the mature and often sexual connotations contained within bad language.

He suggests two approaches. The first is to be present enough to catch myself swearing and steer the outburst into a less offensive word, the classic “shit-to-sugar” approach. I’ve been attempting this for weeks now, and my correction has always come a millisecond too late. By the time I’ve altered the outburst, it’s already out there in the wild and I’m playing catch-up. I have started to mutter “fuckingflipping” a lot.

Stephens’ second suggestion is to find alternative swearwords. “Sausage bacon egg and chips” – a substitute he’s heard one person use during his studies – is actually endearing. Again, I try this to mixed success: my choices of “blooming” and “crikey” make me feel a little too self-consciously like a cartoon chimney sweep. I’m at the stage where I get hugely judgmental of other people swearing, so I suppose that’s a start. I just wish it was flipping easier.

Start here

• Make a physical change to match your behavioural one: take a different route to work. It will remind you of your resolution

• Be mindful – try to notice what you’re doing before you do it

• Moderate your behaviour with lesser examples; if you’re giving up swearing, the word “crap” will be your new hero