Name Calling

by Sarah Chana Radcliffe, M.Ed.,C.Psych.Assoc.

• "Idiot!"
• "Am not!"
• "Are too!"

The familiar chatter of siblings fills xour homes with tension and stress - as if there wasn't enough already!

No parent wants their children to fight. Enter Mom:

• "Stop being mean to your brother!"
• "Stop teasing your sister right now!"

Parents want to help but may inadvertently make things worse. The whole family seems to have a problem with "name-calling."

What is Name-Calling?

Name-calling is the use of any negative label to describe another person.  Children often use words like "stupid," "baby," "idiot," "moron," "nerd," and so on when addressing their siblings.  Parents sometimes find themselves using similar words to address their children, but more commonly use negative labels in sentences that describe children's behaviour - for example, making use of words like "babyish," "silly," "mean," "rude," "selfish," "lazy" and so on.  Parents may not even realize that they are name-calling when they employ these negative labels.  They innocently put these words into different grammatical structures sounding like any of the following:

• "You are being so mean."
• "What you are saying is mean."
• "Don't be so mean."
• "That was so mean."

Whatever grammatical structure is used, the negative label "mean" will be absorbed by the child.  Parents cannot minimize the effects of a negative label by trying to hide it in various sentence structures. If the label is used anywhere in a sentence, it will be felt as an insult by the child.

Effects of Name-Calling

Any negative label or insult has the potential to hurt a child's feelings.  Children who are frequently insulted by their siblings often remember the experience with pain even in adulthood. Children who have been insulted by their parents (i.e. being called "stupid," "careless," "sloppy," bad" etc.) also often remember the pain throughout adulthood.

However, remembered pain is not the worse consequence of name-calling. Far worse is the impact name-calling can have on personality development. Even fully grown adults who are subjected to regular insults (verbal abuse) are eventually affected by it: they come to feel less adequate, less competent and less loveable the more they experience being insulted.  This effect is much much more powerful in childhood when a youngster's sense of self is not yet fully formed.  At this point, being called names can leave the child truly believing that he or she is damaged, worthless, useless, bad and defective, as well as unlovable. Once a child entertains such notions about him/herself, the child tends to act in ways that are consistent with that poor self-image.  So a child who is regularly called "stupid" for example, comes to believe that he can't do things like other people and then he stops trying to succeed. The label can be crippling. Of course the negative labels used regularly by parents tend to be much more damaging than those used only by siblings, but the effects of sibling-abuse must not be underestimated.

How to Stop Name-Calling

The whole family needs to be respectful toward each other at all times.  Brothers and sisters must be considerate of each others' feelings; parents must be considerate of their children's feelings and children must be considerate of their parents' feelings. The family rule must be:"I do not give or accept verbal abuse." When the family accepts this standard of care, all members will experience emotional safety and the foundation for love. Home can be a haven.

Parents have two jobs in the creation of a name-calling-free environment. The first job is to provide a model. The second job is to teach the children how to respectfully express negative emotions (a step-by-step procedure for doing this is outlined in my parenting manual "Help! I Have Children."). I will highlight the basic process for both of these steps below.

Provide the Model

The first step is providing a model. This means that parents never call children names – they never use negative labels.  Many people wonder how it is possible to correct a child without using a negative label.  The secret is this: whenever you want to use a negative label to accurately describe a child's behaviour (i.e. "rude"), replace the label with the exact opposite word. For example, instead of saying to Junior, "You are being rude," you can say, "You need to be polite when speaking to me."  Always use the desired label instead of the offensive label. In this way, your children hear only your target words (your goals for them) throughout their 20 years growing up with you. This helps programme their brains to remember your goals. Thus, you can hope that your children will turn out to be smart, considerate, prompt, honest, helpful, kind, creative, determined, patient and so forth.  However, they must HEAR those words consistently in order to steer themselves in that direction. If all they hear is stupid, lazy, selfish, wild...they will believe this is all that they're capable of.

Therefore, you can make the following kinds of changes in your choice of words:

messy becomes clean and tidy

disorganized becomes organized

selfish becomes generous

careless becomes careful.......

and so forth.  Your sentence then changes from,

"You're acting like a baby."

to

"I know that you know how to be mature.  Please act that way now."

Or from,

"You're being nasty to your brother."

to

"Please be kind to your brother."

Now that you've provided the model (and by the way, this also means that you don't call your spouse names), you are ready to teach your children. The following process can be used among others:

1. Explain to your children that name-calling hurts and is harmful. Tell them that they must express their annoyance, frustration or upset simply by naming their feelings without adding insults.  For example, it is fine to say to a sibling, "I disagree," or "I don't like what you did," or "I don't like your idea," etc.
2. Make a clear consequence for name-calling. For example, whenever someone insults another person, they will have to (insert loss of privilege or writing assignment or whatever you like to use)...(for a complete list of negative consequences see "Help! I Have Children."
3. Apply consequence EVERY TIME you hear name-calling.  If improvement doesn't happen over a few weeks, select a different consequence and try again.

Ridding your house of name-calling is a service to your family and even to your grandchildren, as the intergenerational chain of verbal abuse stops with your new programme. Good luck!