Calling kids ‘lunatic’, insulting or not?

When did we become a society so insulted by words.
Lunatic
Stupid arse
knob head
Nothing wrong with building character and resilience from an early age.

I’ve called my kids much worse!

@Dotjones I thought all of those terms were now considered offensive?

I think "lunatic" is fine, it's like a lot of words that were used in medical settings in the past but now are not. If lunatic is offensive then so are idiot and moron. Also imbecile and cretin, although I don't know many people who use those terms regularly.
"Lunatic" comes from the belief that full moons brought on temporary insanity, which often describes a child's behaviour.

(In medicine, an "idiot" was someone whose mental development never exceeds that of a normal 2 year old, an "imbecile" was someone whose development didn't exceed a normal 7 year old, a "moron" was someone whose development didn't exceed a normal 12 year old - see Edmund Burke Huey's 1912 book Backward and Feeble-Minded Children for more details. A "cretin" was someone with congenital idiodine deficiency.)

I call my kids lunatics all the time. And nutcases, mad, bonkers, cabbage-heads, melons, doughnuts, sausages, bananas, monkeys...

In Ireland we prefer eejit.

Children don’t understand that though, so most parents should teach them not to use these terms by not using them themselves. The word in question is very outdated but when it comes to more modern offensive terms how are our children supposed to know the words they hear are unacceptable if parents are happy to use slurs at home?

You must find life very difficult....🙄

It's not a word I use because, as a kid, it was used against me a lot as my mum was an inpatient in a secure psychiatric hospital. It's a word that makes me inwardly recoil, I realise that to many people that is a 'me' issue so I would never say anything to anyone who does use it.

Great word. Much better than little fuckers anyway.

I call mine lunatics all the time.

In my defence, they are quite mad. I found them in the black bin yesterday

🙄

I think it's fine but if you're worried about it, switch to calling them a numpty instead.

As far as I know, that a safe term to use.

I think it's absolutely fine because it's said in an endearing way. We call our children skitunge (shit child) in Sweden and it's not meant in a bad way, more like "you little rascal" or something.

That's quite a common word to use where I grew up (south coast UK).

I think the sentiment is fine but you could probably pick a better word...
Mine are little but I tend to call them a "silly 'nana" or "cheeky monkey" etc

I prefer moron

We may have to disagree - most people do differentiate an intended insult from words that aren’t the sort of thing said by psychologists teaching best practice in social communication.

That’s not what I said, or what I meant.

Of course children pick up language from their peers however the point is that at.some point those peers have picked it up from parents. We need to model language we are happy with our DC using.

so kids never pick up meanness from other kids in nursery, siblings etc - it’s all observed behaviour from parents? Ok…

Other children say these things because their parents demonstrate similar behaviours.

Yes ‘you’re behaving in an unexpected way’ say that…😂

as a parent of older kids, other kids will say way worse things than nearly any parent ever would - it’s lighthearted and people overthink these things all the time these days. I don’t think you’re actually saying to them ‘you’re behaving like someone in a 19th c Victorian lunatic asylum’ as we all know they spent all of their time chucking bubbles about!

The problem is that every word in the language that one might use to convey the idea of "I think that your current behaviour could be construed as somewhat suboptimal in the rationality department" either has been, or could potentially be, used as a mental illness slur. After all, using such words towards or about someone literally means that we are likening their behaviour to someone with either psychosis or mental disability.

I genuinely don't think that there is any way around that. We just have to decide to what extent our choice of words is actually likely to offend someone who does have MH issues. I don't want to be one of the "You can't say anything these days, my friend said he was English and was shot dead by the police" people, but we all have to let off a bit of steam from time to time. And sometimes when these discussions come up, people with actual psychosis say "It really doesn't offend me, lighten up a bit".

I tend to refer to Donald Trump as a fucking moron, but I would probably try not to do so when within earshot of someone who I know to be (or to care for) someone with substantial intellectual disabilities. But of course on the Internet there are always going to be people in that category. So again, there's probably no good solution and it's up to our individual moral compasses.