Name-Calling: OK for Parents?

Child #1: You're so stupid!
Child #2: Am not! You're an idiot!
Child #1: Am not!

And on it goes. We've all heard it. We've all done it. Hopefully, we stopped it when we were children. Many of us haven't. But is there any danger in growing up to be a name-caller? Are there negative effects to calling our children (or even our spouses) names?

The Purpose of Name-Calling

There is a purpose behind name-calling. Whether an adult or a child is the perpetrator, the purpose remains the same: To take power from another and give it to one's self.  And this is precisely what qualifies "name-calling" as verbal abuse. Taking another person's power away from them is never OK.


The Effects of Name-Calling

Any negative label or insult has the potential to hurt a person's feelings. (Of course, this is the entire purpose of name-calling.) This is particularly so when it comes to children. Children who have been insulted by their parents (being called careless, sloppy, stupid, brat, idiot) often remember these insults well into adulthood.  But far worse than the hurt feelings they feel at the moment or even the memory of those feelings are the long-term consequences.

Full grown adults who are regularly subjected to name-calling and insults (verbal abuse) are eventually affected by it. The more they are subjected to it, the more they believe the words, come to feel inadequate, incompetent and even unloveable. (In fact, those who perpetrate domestic abuse use this tactic as their main brainwashing method to keep the abused partner in their control.) If this is the effect on a fully grown, mature person, how much more powerful is it to a child whose personality is still developing?!  Once a child entertains the ideas that he is worthless, useless, damaged, bad, defective or unloveable, he tends to live up (or down, in this case) to that self-image. The labels become crippling.


Parenting through Name-Calling

"Ok, I see that in a marriage or with a co-worker, this could be bad, but is calling my child a brat really all that bad?"

In the parent-child relationship, the adult is superior. A superior position demands a certain amount of responsibility. Like a boss over employees, you must make judgements and have a certain product that you are responsible for producing. Your role as parent requires that you teach your child to fit into society as a happy, well-adjusted human being. Verbal abuse does not fit into the production of that sort of person. Your child will not be well-adjusted if their self-image is warped; they will not be happy; and certainly an unhappy person with a warped personality cannot fit into society!

As parents, we are always teaching.  ALWAYS.  Everything we say and do, good or bad, is a lesson for the child.  Call your child  _________(fill the blank)  and you've slammed shut so many doors to success! Their door to happiness; their door to success; their door to liking themself; their door to a happy non-abusive relationship as an adult.. all slammed shut. With all doors closed, they're closeted into that label of being _________ (fill in the blank again).

So how do we stop the name-calling?  The answer in my next post.

Happy Mothering!