Use Your Words! Use Your Words!

I hear this all the time, mainly from Millennials trying to settle two or more squabbling kids.  Instead of saying, "You kids settle yourselves down, and I mean now!", they say "Use your words! Use your words!"

What words are they talking about?

Continue for a brief lesson on training children that hasn't won any awards from Psychology Today, Good Housekeeping, or Parenting magazine.


Kids squabble.  It's a fact of life.  Some more than others, but they all do it.  When that happens the authority figure is supposed to step in and bring order out of chaos, justice out of oppression, and joyful exuberance from angst and despair.  Kind of like my old father did. 

"You kids pipe down!"

The children always settled right down and generally went somewhere else to do whatever they were not supposed to be doing.  As I remember it, Mom had a better feel for what was really going on and would provide a solution as needed.

These days I hear this Use your words! crap, and I haven't the faintest idea what they expect the child to say.  Consider:

A bunch of eight year old boys in third grade during lunch.  The kids are brown bagging it, and one boy, whom we'll call Glen Filthie, has a brownie for desert.  The other kids might steal the brownie, but past experience has taught them about Glen, Ex-Lax, and dealing with Montezuma's Revenge for three days and nights.  Sooner or later, the bright ones will conclude there's something funny with the food that comes from Glen's house, so it's best to lay off.  The fact that Glen has two deserts, one of which he hides and the other of which he sets out as bait might also have something to do with their conclusions.

I digress.  I'll begin again.

Eight year old boys in third grade brown bagging lunch.  Jack has a brownie for desert, and while eating his lunch he sees this Fat Dad in the next row eyeing the brownie and drooling into his lettuce sandwich.  Jack palms a newly sharpened number two pencil, which has been worn down to shank length, and waits.  Fat Dad tries to snatch the brownie, and Jack nails his fat little hand with his grade school shank.

Okay, fight's on.

Since Teacher! Teacher! is present, things get broken up pretty fast and end with promises of an after school meeting.  Then Teacher! Teacher! throws a curve.

"Why didn't you use your words, Jack?"

Words?  What words?  What's she talking about, words?  Fat Dad tried to take my brownie, I let him have it with my pencil.  Now he looks like he's going to cry.  Okay, he shouldn't have tried to steal.

"Next time remember to use your words, Jack.  You don't want to grow up to be a hoodlum like Glen Filthie over there, do you?  He's going to reform school, once there's an opening."

"I don't know, Teacher! Teacher!.  I like Glen, he's pretty much okay, and he's into this archery business.  We go out shooting and stuff, and even if it's reform school, it can't be much worse than listening to your pedantic winging all afternoon."

So... words.

Revisiting my original scenario, I suppose adding a little verbiage might play out something like this.

Jack has a brownie for desert, and while eating his lunch he sees this Fat Dad in the next row eyeing the brownie and drooling into his lettuce sandwich. 

"Don't even think it, Fat Dad."

"What?"

"I see ya', and I ain't gonna argue with ya'.  Do not put your fat fuckin' hands on my desert."

"Jack!"

"Now what the fuck?"

Jack palms a newly sharpened number two pencil, which has been worn down to shank length, and waits.  As Teacher! Teacher! delivers a lecture on profanity and orders Jack out into the hall as punishment, Fat Dad tries to snatch the brownie.  Without missing a beat, Jack nails his fat little hand with his grade school shank.  Fat Dad yells and snatches his hand away, and the fight's on.

We'll leave Jack out in the hall, where he'll eventually be joined by Glen Filthie (Teacher! Teacher! not being overly bright about some things), and the two will take the rest of the day off.  Because, as Glen points out, only an idiot would stand around in the hall when the sky is clear and the temperature is a solid 68° F.

I hope all you readers were entertained, but my question remains: What words?  What do the adults expect?  Who teaches the words, and what are these magical words supposed to accomplish?