If your child is naughty, you should ..

Hotmale"If your child is naughty, you should reprimand him/her/it/them?"The sentence is hypothetical and "the child" doesn't refer to any ***.

This remains a conundrum. Recast in the plural:

If your children are naughty, you should reprimand them.

I see, thank you Mister Micawber.
Is it a big mistake to write: If your child is naughty, you should reprimand him"?

It's not gender neutral to write him, but sexist society tends to see "him" written, assuming male as the default.

It's far better to use the gender-neutral plural.
"If your child is naughty, you should reprimand them".

It does sound better to plural everything, but since Shakespeare, one of the recognised fathers of modern English, often used the plural to signify non-gen

Jaylort's far better to use the gender-neutral plural. "If your child is naughty, you should reprimand them". It does sound better to plural everything, but since Shakespeare, one of the recognised fathers of modern English, often used the plural to signify non-gendered singular, I'm going to vote that it's okay to do. Another alternative is to write it as him/her.

Yes, recasting is the best way to go.

But I was answering the question of if it's a big mistake.

Whether people agree with me or not, that's how the language is and has been used for many many years

Thank you both for your discussion!