“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours.”
Not a quote you would expect to be uttered by Monty Python funnyman Eric Idle, but then no one is immune to the sting of verbal abuse. Let’s face it – words wound no matter how young or old we are.

Each of us – if we are honest – can recall a time when someone’s careless or angry words cut us to the core. One such memory transports me back to Eighth grade during a group exercise in Spanish class. A fellow classmate trying to be witty in front of his friends lambasts me with a barrage of cruel insults and put-downs. Hiding the hurt behind a nonchalant smile, I manage to make it through class and out the door without crying.

Although this particular classmate is dead and gone, his words still live on in my mind.
Many of us hoard these mental tapes in our heads, and in our vulnerable moments, take them out and replay those cutting words over and over again, giving them power to hurt us all over again.

The spoken word is a mighty tool. Within those combinations of vowels and consonants, we have the power to string together words that build people up or tear them down. In the Book of James in the New Testament, old James devotes an entire chapter to controlling the tongue. While the tongue is a small thing, he recognized the enormous damage it could wield, spewing out thoughtless chatter and vulgarities.

“Hey, Mephibosheth, you smell like a dirty camel!”

While it’s true that words can’t break our bones, cruel words can break a child’s spirit. Name-calling seems to be an accepted part of our culture: from the sitcoms and cartoons our kids watch on TV, to the insensitive banter they hurl back and forth at each other on the playground. Some kids may think calling each other names is no ‘big deal’ but after children have been called ‘stupid’ or ‘ugly’ enough times they begin to accept it as truth.

The confidence and self-esteem of kids targeted by callous classmates takes a direct hit. A friend of mine told me she actually dreaded going to school and would try to make her self as invisible as possible as to not draw any attention from the other kids.

By the time she got out of high school her self-esteem was dangerously low. To make matters worse, she married a man who constantly belittled her and drove her to the point of actually considering suicide.

It’s bad enough being called a ‘loser’ by your classmates, but when the verbal abuse is dished out by a trusted adult, those labels tend to stick tight.

Flashback to fourth grade math class: standing in front of the class, my clammy hands clutching a stick of chalk, my mind goes blank as I try to work the long division problem scrawled across the blackboard. In a huff my teacher – dubbed the “Ice Queen” by kids for her frosty personality – storms to the front of the room and grabs the chalk from my hands.

“Any baby can do this,” she said, punctuating her words by drawing several lines of chalk down my nose.

As I have grown older I have learned to turn down the volume of those mental tapes. I have also learned to fight back (nicely, of course) when I am verbally attacked – thanks to motherhood.

This transformation took place while working with a cantankerous co-worker at a part-time job many years ago. This man had nothing good to say about anyone and had no trouble sharing it with them, including me.

“I’m a mom, and I don’t have to take this from anyone!” I thought to myself.
After a particularly vitriolic tirade one day, I looked at him, asked if he was finished and handed him a bar a soap.

“This is from your mom,” I said, “she said to clean up your act.”