My 7yo son comes home from school today and starts to tell me and his mother about how a bully at school has been picking on him. I asked if this kid was in the same grade as him and he said yes. I then asked what he was doing he the said he was pushing him aruond on the playground and calling him names and getting the other children to laugh at him. MY wife’s advice was to tell the teacher.:rolleyes: Now I can still remember painfully where that advice will get you; In deeper turmoil. So I told my son to forget that; if he jacks with you again to knock him the fuck out! This didn’t please my wife at all but WTF? Telling the teacher only targets yourself for more ridicule. And I know my son hes not the type to go around starting fights, his only desire in life is to be friends with everyone. Even if this kid winds up beating the crap out of my son at least the bully will quit picking on him becuase bullies don’t want to mess with people who are going to fight back. This will allso let the other kids know not to fuck with my kid.
So what do you think? Too harsh advice? What would you do?
Hell no, the advice was perfect. My 6 year old son has already had to deal with a bully pushing him around at school. When he told me I told him to just hit him back as hard as he could. The next time the bully picked on him, milliAmp did and the bully went down for the count, while crying like a little girl.
Mrs. Amp and I were informed of the situation and went into the principal’s office the next day. When the teacher asked us why we condoned violence I calmly explained to her that we didn’t but that we condoned self-defense and that if the play areas were monitored properly the way they should be then the incident would have never happened.
I made sure afterwards that milliAmp understood that in no way should he go around hitting others but that he should always defend himself even if it meant running the risk of being punished by the school. I let him know that if the actions were justified that we would back him up no matter what.
Just make sure that whatever your son does to back him up. And screw that tell the teacher bullshit, no one messes with my son anymore because he was allowed to defend himself.
depends. Telling the teacher normally doesn’t get you shit and you get a bum rap as a rat(sort of like prison). If we go by the same logic as prison, then your son has the responsibility to beat the crap out of this kid or else he’ll lose more face. But then again, school is not prison. Actually, mine felt like one.
Of course, it’s no good if your son doesn’t know the basics of fighting:
1.) swift kick to the groin
2.) push bully to ground as he’s gasping for air
3.) start kicking him in the ribs
anyway, that’s how I resovled my disputes up through Junior High(once I got to high school, the bullies became Crips and started packing, so fighting was out).
No question but that your advice was correct. With respect to bully dynamics the swiftest way to stop this crap is to fight back. “Telling the teacher” is absurd as a real world solution to these situations as they can’t be everywhere at once and bullies will wait until they are sure they aren’t being monitored to pounce. Hitting back hard and fast nips these situations in the bud.
School is exactly like prison. I’m with the beating-the-bejeezus-out-of-the-bully idea. I’d also consider contacting the teacher myself FIRST (don’t leave it up to your child to report it), and warning them what’s going to happen if the teacher doesn’t get off his or her arse and watch the kids, and also telling them that if my child gets punished for having to defend himself when the teacher should be doing it, there will be hell to pay.
As the father of a 6 year old, I also cuncur(?). I was a wus throughout school and I got shit for it throughout school. I dont want my son to be that way. If you dont stand up for yourself when your 6, your probably not gonna do it when your 15 either. Then you wont ever learn until your married and divorced that its ok to stand up for yourself.
I see everyone’s testosterone is in good supply. Great. Now, can we look at the issue like adults?
My brother gave his son the same lame advice that everyone here has advocated. Later, at his son’s hospital bed, he thought better of it.
Lots of kids are just not ever going to be able to beat up a bully. Bullies usually travel in packs and don’t fight fair. Kids on the playground can be worse than adults in prison.
But I’m not sure that talking to the teacher is necessarily the right choice, either.
I think the thing to do is to explain to your son that the world is full of assholes and bullies and that there’s no percentage in trying to beat them at their own stupid violence game. I would explain also that it is a mistake to tie his ego to his ability to beat up other assholes and that we’re no longer apes vying for physical dominance for access to females.
I’d tell him that words can often be more effective than fists, and teach him how to sharpen his wits rather than stupidly play his enemy’s game.
I’d try to teach him some lessons from Sun-Tzu.
The very LAST thing I’d do is teach him that violence is the only – let alone the best – option.
I don’t think anyone here is advocating violence. No one here is telling SHAKES to teach his kid to beat up everyone in sight. What we are saying is that self-defense is a last resort and unfortunately a way of life now a days.
And lets face it, witty remarks towards a bully are only going to make him/her madder. Words can’t protect you the way a pair of fists would. Let’s be realistic about it.
The GrizzCub is only 13months old, so I’ve got a little while to mull this over for him.
But, SHAKES, I’d talk to the teacher. Tell him/her that we know that if my child tattles to teacher, that only results in further torment from the bully. That your son has your permission and support to defend himself if the need arises. That the school needs to shut this bully down and make it known that sort of behavior won’t be tolerated.
Let’s face it… if schools are going to adopt a “no tolerance” policy, then make it work FOR you! Our schools around here have made abundantly clear to the students that the school is responsible for them from the time they leave their front door in the morning to the time they pass back through it after school. I say, hold them to their responsibility!
My dad always told me “never to pick a fight and never to walk away from one.”
I was picked on by bullies twice growing up. Both times I beat the living hell out of them and then got up, agreed with them that it was a draw, and moved on. That way there’s no hard feelings but they also never fucked with me again.
One caveat, I don’t think I could have just fought back because my father told me to. In both instances they picked on me until I was so enraged I just snapped and then kicked their ass. The strength to do it came in part from frustration and not just because I knew I was in the right.
So how did you resolve conflict once violence was no longer an option?
My son had a lot of problems with violence in schools. He had very limited social skills and couldn’t tell when he was being teased, and didn’t know how to respond to it. People would keep teasing him, expecting him to catch a clue and tell them “bite me” or whatever 6-10-year-olds do, and instead, he’d just get more and more agitated until a fight broke out. After the dust settled, all the witnesses would say “Bill was just teasing him, he didn’t mean anything, and then this kid just snapped.”
You’ve got a very few basic strategies here.
Do nothing. Your son will be miserable and possibly beaten up/robbed.
Tell your son to fight back. Somebody will get hurt. The problem might or not resolve itself.
Tell on the bullies. Your son will be miserable if the bullies are career bullies rather than just drive-by jerks. Possibly nobody gets hurt.
My suggestions:
Tell the teachers. Tell the principals. Tell the PTA. Tell the other parents. Say this: There is a bullying problem at this school. Our son has been physically attacked. Our son will do his level best to stay out of harm’s way and away from the bullies, but he will defend himself if he is attacked again.
Tell your son to stick near the teachers.
Visit the school. Stare at the bullies. Learn their names and watch what they do. Talk to the yard monitors. Get other parents to visit the school with you.
I am in general symphathetic to those who say to tell the kid to fight back. Nothing dishonorable about that. Problem is that many kids are scared to do this. And many times this fear is for good reason, as noted by ambushed.
There’s really no perfect solution. What I would try is speaking to the bully’s parents. If that doesn’t work, and the bully doesn’t lose interest, try the fight back approach.
Call a meeting with the teacher, guidance councillor and principal (or VP). At the meeting, tell those in attendance about your concerns, especially those mentioned above concerning the playground not being properly supervised. It also wouldn’t hurt to mention things along the lines that a teacher or adminsitrator simply telling the bully to stop picking on mini-shakes would make matters worse as it would give bully reason to single out mini-shakes more. At this meeting, pass out copies of your concerns in a typed letter. Make sure you have an extra one for yourself. Make sure those in attendance know that you are keeping an extra copy. Finish the meeting by saying that you are confident that the administration will deal with this situation quickly and effectively.
I guarantee that the administration will call a meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Bully and tell them that their precious wittle snookums is whomping children on the playground.
Document, document, document. If things don’t change for the better (and quickly) you can have another meeting and remind them that you still have the letter and that if they can’t handle the situation, you’ll have to bring it up with someone who can (school board representative, central office, whatever).
I gotta go way against the violence issue. It’s getting your son to drop down to the bully’s level. Bullies are “effective” because they can whip the pants off of littler kids. Your son might get in one good shot, but I’d bet that he’d be on the worse end of it when all is said and done. Even if the bully is “stopped” today, it’s a safe bet that he’d ambush mini-shakes the first chance he gets.
Why is this thread addressed to “dads”? (Sounds like you are fishing for some support for the “beat 'em up” approach, and expect to get it from men more than from women).
I think this is because men have direct experience at having been boys that were picked on by bullies in their youth, understand the precise social dynamics of being a bullied young boy in a way women cannot and can offer direct practical advice as to the best way to stop this.
Bullies tend to pick on boys that they think they can terrorize or push around. Quite frankly a good deal of this has to do with the way a boy carries or presents himself. It may not be the most pleasing scenario to those who want everyone to get along but teaching a child to defend himself and present himself as someone not to screw around with goes miles in preventing this sort of occurrence in the future.
God bless those folks who were never bullied or went to schools with bully free playgrounds but moms and teachers are not always going to be there in the big wide cruel world. This is a lesson he should best learn early. While administrative intervention may be appropriate in some circumstances it only addresses the symptom not the cause. If a boy learns to defend himself honorably and ethically when young he will have a better self image and be much less prone to being future bully bait than if he has to rely on the good graces of the teacher’s skirts and administrative solutions.
Add me firmly to the anti-violence camp. You are the parent. Why do you resist at least trying initial steps to handle this? I agree fully with those who suggest YOU immediately bring it up with the teacher, principal, school board, PTA, etc.
I think you are doing your child a disservice by teaching him that when confronted by unfair physical abuse, the appropriate response is to escalate the degree of violence.
And it will be unfortunate if your kid successfully beats the other kid up and, even tho you KNOW the other shit deserved it, your kid gets the bad rep as “the kid who hits.”
Finally, it isn’t accidental that your kid is the one being picked on. I’m not saying it is his fault. But you might want to look at what he might be able to do differently to make himself a less inviting target.
For what it matters, I have trained in various streetfighting-oriented martial arts for a number of years, and all 3 of my kids (ages 10-13) are quite accomplished at various arts ranging from grappling, to striking, and stick and knife work. But they know that they will be in major trouble if they ever use those against their peers.
As a former student/bully victim, I can really sympathize with these kids. The one thing that doesn’t seem to be coming up is the fact that bullies aren’t generally small or weak. What do you do if your kid is in no way EVER going to be able to stop this kid unless he lands an unexpected groin kick, and then risks losing teeth the next week?
I think I support (at least at first) the suggestions about documenting and telling the administration to do its job.
The one other point I need to make is that I’ve been an elementary school teacher, and while there really is such a thing as a bully, I’ve seen so MANY cases where the “victim” was just a 4th grader who has no perspective on what it really means to be bugged. I got frustrated with the parents who did a bad job of telling their kids to defend themselves, because almost no K-6 kid has an adult understanding of what bullying really is. It’s not accidental bumping. It’s not pushing too hard at soccer. It’s not even line cutting, although that’s a big issue for kids.
What I’d get is fights or near-fights over things that the kids themselves would have forgotten about by the next day.
When we tell kids to defend themselves, we need to very pointedly lay out the kinds of situations we’re talking about.
No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No.
While I don’t really feel strongly about this, I’m not sure that this is the best idea. Here’s the probable scenario.
One ring-dingy. Two ring-dingy.
Shakes: Is this Mr. Bully?
Mr. Bully: Yup.
Shakes: This is Mr. Shakes. It seems we have a problem with your little darling picking on my little darling… yadda, yadda, yadda.
Mr. Bully: I’ll talk to him.
Shakes: Thanks click
Mr. Bully to Bully: Stop picking on that mini-shakes kid; his father called and told me you pick on him.
next day at school
Bully to mini-shakes: So, mini-shakes, did you cry to daddy? “Daddy, make him stop.” etc.
Sorry, I just gotta ask, if your son is a bit of a “non-confrontationist” should we call him “Milque-SHAKE”?
Well, put me in the no-violence-if-you-can-possibly-avoid-it-but-if-you-absolutely-can’t-hit-first-and-hit-hard camp. Sometimes the only solution that works is a punch in the nose.
My son’s school preaches a 3-step approach to bullies:
Talk, Walk, Squawk.
In other words, try to talk it out first. If that doesn’t work, walk away. If that doesn’t work, tell the teacher. I totally approve of this, but I’ve told him that it’s okay to defend himself if all of that fails. And I’ve begun teaching him (he’s only 6) self-defense skills.
I’d a whole lot rather he have that reputaion than “the kid who gets his ass kicked on a regular basis.”
