The story of the thumb-sucker: Is the FCA using supervisory shock tactics?

The 1845 German children's book comprised ten illustrated stories, mostly about children, which each have a central moral demonstrating the sometimes-dire consequences of misbehaviour. Take ‘Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher' (The Story of the Thumb-Sucker), for example, in which a mother warns her son not to suck his thumbs but, when she leaves the house and he resumes his thumb sucking, a roving tailor appears and cuts off the boy's thumbs with giant scissors. The FCA may not be waving sharp implements threateningly at the regulated masses, but it appears to have adopted the shock f...