How do you think about the proverb "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me"?

It is something that parents often tell their children when others have hurt their feelings. However, it does little to resolve the distress that emotional bullying produces. Saying this is a dismissal or discount of the child’s feelings. Its purpose seems to be to free the parent from actually being involved in solving the problem. Sadly, this is likely to add to the child’s sense of vulnerability.

If it were true a lot of lawyers would out of a job!

The proverb is clearly wrong on its face. Words can be assembled to hurt, and very few of us are immune.

Nonsense, words can eat away at your heart and the pain stays forever.

You can lose your job or go to jail for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.

I often heard this as a young boy. I didn’t believe it then, and I believe it even less now. Words—especially to a child—can cause psychic wounds as nasty as physical ones. (I wince still at something a little girl said to me in elementary school.)

It’s a crock. Words hurt.

Words can hurt you and can get you hurt.

Not that I have not handed this saying down to my children like the generation before me and the one before that and so on back to about 3.8 mya when it was originally instigated. I think at that time it was stated thus: “Grunt! Grunt, grunt, snort. Smack! Ow, ow, OW!!”

It is an equivocation on the word hurt. Having broken bones and feeling bad, are two completely different things.

And having said that, I would personally prefer the words over the sticks and stones.

It’s hard to break a bone with a stick. Bones are usually much harder than sticks. So, I disagree.

I think it’s the war chant of the Belgian Army.

I don’t think this is intended as a claim about the harmlessness of words. Even as kids, we recognized this maxim for what it is: a device for denying one’s tormentor the pleasure of seeing the very real hurt his words caused.

I like it. As the baby of the family, I found comfort in those words against putdowns from my two older Sisters and other older kids.

It’s a load of rubbish. Sticks and stones can hurt you for a while, but physical wounds heal quickly. Words can be used in defamation, identity theft, or false testimony – all of which can ruin a person for the rest of their life.

Physical injury from sticks and stones is real due to others.
Mental injury from words is real only when personally accepted as real.

I’m with @gondwanalon on both comments.

A child’s sense of identity is fragile. Emotional bullying has real effects on the victim. It is not simply whether or not one accepts the validity of insults. While some children may be able to laugh it off, many cannot. Most do not blame victims for their physical pain, why should anyone blame them for emotional pain.

Life is not easy, kind or fare. The sooner kids realize that the better off they will be.

@gondwanalon, life is not easy, kind or fair. However, without consequences for acts of cruelty the victim learns that it is okay to be cruel.

@Bill1939 Only cruel minded people learn that it’s OK to be cruel. The rest of us either choose to be strong (winners) or choose to be weak (victims).

@gondwanalon, how do people become cruel minded? I doubt that many are born with an inclination for cruelty. Some may, but the frequency of cruelty suggests that there must be reasons other than genetics that accounts for the number of people who are cruel. Most behavior is acquired through witnessing actions and mirroring them; brains are ‘hard wired’ to learn in this way.

Because one cannot choose where and to whom they are born, it seems unlikely that one can choose to be strong or weak. Consider pit bulls. They have a reputation for being viscous. However, in virtually every instance such animals have been severely abused by their owners. Pit bulls raised by those who love and care for them are never viscous. It is not a question of choice, but how they are raised. Gentle pit bulls are not weak and nor are the aggressive strong.

@gondwanalon I strongly disagree. Consider the recent story of a woman caught cheating, who accused her lover of rape to hide her indiscretions. Her partner then went out and killed the lover, believing him to be a rapist. Was that only real when personally accepted as real, or did the words directly lead to the death of an innocent man?

@Bill1939 I’m no psychologist. I can’t explain human behavior. We’re all different. Some people never seem to to understand right from wrong. Yet right from wrong distinction seems to be “hard wired” (as you say) in us. When I was 4 years old, I stole some small toys from our neighbor. I had never witnessed stealing before. I somehow knew it was very wrong. No one taught me right from wrong or quilt or how to evade detection. I tried to hide the toys and felt guilty about it. Normal people have powerful brains and quickly figure things out. Even though I was not caught, I never stole toys again (perhaps due to the power of my own guilty feelings).

Equating a dog’s mental capabilities to a human’s is problematic. Dogs likely can’t think out of the box they’re in and humans can see the bigger picture and have the ability to rise above the past. We can choose to let the past all go and think positive and hopeful towards the future if we want to. Or we can choose to be victims and let the past ruin our future.

@FireMadeFlesh “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is a child’s saying. It’s helpful for kids to fend off insults by others. Of course false criminal accusations by adults against other adults can be extremely damaging.

@gondwanalon, many parents have observed that before a child is two-years-old they will act on their impulse to take something they want that another child is holding. However, when the other child picks up another this object it becomes desirable and it is taken away. When the empty-handed child picks up the original object that has been discarded, this again become desired and is taken away.

By this point, an adult will intervene and admonish the offending child. Though it is unlikely that this lesson is accessible to a four-year-old, the emotional link between taking what is not theirs and the disapproval that can result should an adult know about it has been established. I doubt that as a four-year-old you experienced guilt, but it is likely that you felt the fear of rejection and it was sufficient to inhibit acting on this impulse again.

There is a difference between the mental capabilities of an adult dog and an adult human, but not between a dog and a very young child. People have the capacity to learn how to relate to a more complex reality. We have the ability for language, symbols that enhance access to memories and conceive of future possibilities. Abstract thinking is unlikely to exist in other animals, but is a necessity for our cognitive power. In this way, ” humans can see the bigger picture and have the ability to rise above the past. We can choose to let the past all go and think positive and hopeful towards the future if we want to.” However, a young child has not develop the intellectual skills necessary to make the kind of choice you posit.

@Bill1939 Believe me when I was trying to hide the small toys that I stole (at the age of 4) I knew that I was guilty of wrong doing. I likely didn’t get caught likely because they were so small (tiny car and airplane). Could be no one ever noticed that they were gone.

Of course a young child doesn’t have the ability to think like an adult. Those thinking skills will come as the child grows up. All I’m saying is that in the meantime (while the child is growing up) a little singsong thing like “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” can help blow off hurtful names and putdowns that some other kids generate. Perhaps not for everyone but I know that it was helpful to me.

@gondwanalon Why teach children patently incorrect ideas? There are other ways of teaching resilience.

@FireMadeFlesh Whatever works.It’s simple and direct. And as a small kid it worked very well for me and therefore it was correct.