These are not words we use lightly around here.  Right up there with “Shut Up” in terms of a phrase turned by one of the Beadling Boys that will automatically trigger an icy stare, stern reprimand and loss of personal items.  As in, “Did you just tell your brother to ‘shut up'”?!  iPhone? — GONE.  iPod? — GONE.  Big League Chew pack you got from Santa in your stocking that you didn’t think I knew you’d squirreled away in your bedroom? — GONE.  That type-deal.  

We are very strict about words.  It is may be the most helicopter-y piece of our parenting.  Maybe because there’s not much grey.  Minimal ambiguity.  There is no detective work or forensic psychiatry that must be deployed to figure out whether something someone said at the lunchroom at school was prompted, whether something was a proportionate or disproportionate response, whether we need to call…