Say “No” to the Shouting Ban!
The threat on the horizon
You heard it here first. The smacking ban was just the start. The dominant
conglomeration of hyper-gentle, no-punishment, counselling-obsessed
childhood “experts” are now set on their next step. Keep your eye open for the
early signs. Articles are starting to appear claiming that “verbal abuse” is as
damaging as sexual abuse. A shouting ban will soon be proposed.
Of course children need warmth, praise and affirmation. Of course this can
salve emotional scars. Of course children deprived of love won’t flourish.
The problem is that they believe that rebuke and annoyance are antithetical to
love. Worse, they view children as so fragile that hard words do irreparable
damage. The artificially soft persona of the stereotypical person-centred
counsellor is prescribed for every human interaction. Any deviation into
sharpness or anger is tantamount to child abuse.
Headlines will pick out “shouting”, but dig deeper and the campaign is much
wider. “Verbal abuse” can include criticising, blaming, demeaning,
disrespecting, scolding, frightening or threatening, according to the “experts”.
Smacking ban proponents deliberately conflated physical abuse with a smack.
The same people are now becoming shouting ban proponents who deliberately
conflate abusive bullying with telling children off or threatening punishment.
Forewarned is forearmed
It has been said that the role of social conservatives is to give reasons for things
that don’t have reasons. That’s the case here. A parenting and child-rearing
culture has been taken for granted for centuries, because it comes naturally and
it works, so there hasn’t been a need to explicitly justify it. There now is a
need, and here it is – read on!
Children need teaching, training and disciplining if they are to internalise the
virtues necessary to flourish. As well as honouring virtues, they must learn to
reject vices. Proper responses to selfish, greedy, hurtful or defiant behaviour
include disapproval, irritation and even anger. The person who is never angered
by what’s wrong has not risen above such base emotions, but has artificially
detached themselves from the stirrings of their own conscience. Children need
to learn that some actions will provoke anger, and that this anger is not always a
fault, but can be inevitable and righteous.
Once, when teaching, I was with a small group of boys aged about 10 to 14. I
overheard an older boy ask a younger one where he lived. Upon hearing which
area of Edinburgh where boy and his family resided, he replied, “That’s where
all of the prostitutes are. Your Mum must be a real munter.” In other words,
your mum is so ugly that your dad has chosen to live near prostitutes so that he
can avail himself of their services in preference to your mum. I was furious and
he knew it. He knew it because I reacted angrily and told him, in no uncertain
terms, that his comment was reprehensible.
The fragility-gentleness utopians would respond that two wrongs don’t make a
right. But, being angered by such an egregious comment is not wrong. The boy
learned that such a statement angered me and, by implication, would likely
anger other people as well. He’d think twice before repeating. I explained why
it was a terrible thing to say and he knew from my demeanour that this wasn’t
some minor faux pas, but was an outrage.
A soft-voiced explanation of the error of his ways would leave him ignorant of
the natural human reaction to such a comment. He might receive a quiet
explanation in school, but in other contexts, he’ll get fired, ostracised or
punched. I taught him that people will flare up in response. The ideal is for
him to learn that from someone who will not punch him, or be personally
insulting or abusive, but will still display a natural human reaction.
Even leaving aside the communication of moral outrage, a stronger tone of
voice serves a function in communication. From parents to Police Officers, the
next means to persuade the uncompliant that you mean business can be to speak
more firmly. It’s human nature. The utopians wish that their winsome whispers
would always carry to the day, but they don’t. Conveying a degree of authority
through tone and manner can be decisive at a critical moment.
Criticism of flaws, blame for actions, a sharp tone and threats of consequences
are all perfectly acceptable aspects of parenting and teaching, but the project to
demonise them all is well underway, under the definition of “verbal abuse”.
The post-moral, therapeutic, children’s rights and fragility philosophy has been
dominant for years already. So, how’s it going? Listening to them, you would
imagine schools full of timid children who dared not express themselves and
shook with terror whenever a teacher approached. Can you find a single teacher
to endorse that view? I doubt it.
The problem is already the precise opposite. Children are more likely to be
defiant and unrestrained, making life miserable for other pupils and for
teachers. Boundaryless living is hardly the recipe for personal well-being
either. A pupil will not feel at peace after another day of hedonistic selfishness
and cruelty. However, it is symptomatic of the dogmatic that they persevere
despite all evidence and can see no way out of a problem beyond a stronger
dose of their existing prescription.
In the prevailing ethos, parents feel inhibited when dealing with their own
children, refraining from the firmness that would be natural. They internalise
the irritation and exasperation that children inevitably engender from time to
time, instead of expressing it. This can leave children pushing the boundaries
incessantly and parents eventually exploding when they can no longer hold in
their frustration. Children do need building up, but sometimes they need taking
down a peg or two as well.
This might be particularly acute for dads. Roughly speaking, dads are more
likely to take a firm line, talk straight, admonish and discipline children. Mums
are more likely to take a relational or restorative approach. These
complementary styles usually combine to form an effective team. That’s my
view, anyway. The Scottish education/social work/charity/political
establishment takes a different view: the feminine typical approach is always
best, and characteristically masculine approaches are worse than ineffective and
unenlightened; they are dangerous – worthy of criminalisation.
There are things that shouldn’t be said to children. I don’t buy the view that a
sentence can blight someone for decades to come, but sustained hostility,
aggression or lack of love will take its toll. The distinction between criticising
and insulting is important. The balance between warmth and firmness is no
exact science, but any loving parent will instinctively seek a generous balance.
A degree of fear of authority figures is healthy but we can easily see when it is
veering into an unhealthy domination or terror. That’s the heart of the utopians’
error. They would never come out and say “because something can be done
badly or to excess, it should be banned,” but that is basically their pitch. They
seek to use the extreme to demonise the perfectly reasonable.
It will be claimed that research shows that “verbal abuse” is the root of all kinds
of evils. On closer inspection, the studies will suffer from conflation,
confounding, gratuitous subjectivity, genetic neglect, and statistical feebleness.
But they won’t be subject to closer inspection in the media or Parliament.
The outlook
In 2018 the Scottish Government toyed with a redefinition of child abuse. The
proposal would have criminalised the sort of behaviours that have been
discussed here. It has seemed to fall off the Government’s agenda. Perhaps
they didn’t have the heart for another Named Person Scheme-style controversy
over state intervention in family life. The juggernaut won’t be stopped that
easily, though.
Pressure is building. All of the usual suspects will keep pushing, with the aid of
a sympathetic media. The Parliament will likely offer little resistance beyond
some temporary querying of the finer details.
They won’t rest until a father is in court for shouting at his son who had just hit
his mother.
Almost all adults interact with children in a way that ain’t broke, so we don’t
need the Scottish Government to fix it.
Remember, you heard it here first.
Richard Lucas
Scottish Family Party
November 2023
Sources:
https://wordsmatter.org/what-is-verbal-abuse/
https://www.msn.com/en-au/health/medical/shouting-at-children-can-be-
as-harmful-as-sexual-abuse-according-to-study/ar-AA1hz42I
