Calling kids ‘lunatic’, insulting or not?

[ConvallariaMuguet]

I don’t know who is BU here so I thought I’d ask.

I occasionally say to my kids, in a jokey way, that they are behaving like a ‘lunatic’. This is meant as a mild and unserious way of saying they are being silly. Or e.g. I might say ‘come on out now, you loony’ to one of them who is covering their hair/the bathroom floor in bubbles.

My husband feels this is rude and insulting to the children. To me it’s just a word for a silly person (though yes, I am aware of the historical use) and not meant in any literal way.

I do feel that he, and the rest of his family, take themselves massively seriously and that’s not all that helpful at times. On the other hand, I was brought up to communicate in a much less formal (frivolous) way, and it could well be me who’s in the wrong?

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.

You must find life very difficult....🙄

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 The word in question is very outdated but when it comes to more modern offensive terms how are our children supposed to know the words they hear are unacceptable if parents are happy to use slurs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?

In Ireland we prefer eejit.

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

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.)

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

I’ve called my kids much worse!

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.