Past threads on how to teach kids to deal with bullying have general agreement that it’s okay in many circumstances to respond to physical violence with physical violence. This makes sense; after all, in the adult world, it would be called “self-defense.”
This recent thread and my own musing have led me to wonder: is it every okay for a kid to respond to non-physical bullying of any kind with physical violence? If so, what kind of circumstances are necessary?
I can see the answer being “no”; after all, in the adult world, it would be called “assault and battery.” But I’m curious.
Absolutely. But sometimes that just doesn’t work, and telling kids that it’s never okay to use violence, ever, can be damaging too. Most kids, I imagine, are teased or bullied or whatever at school. It’s a great theory that at least someone - teacher, administrator, whoever - at that school will have both the desire and means to do something, but chances are they won’t. Rather than talk out my ass about why, I’ll relate a personal anecdote.
I was taught never to use violence (unless being abducted), nor even respond to insults in kind. It could be argued that my parents took the pacifism lessons a little bit too far, because it became apparent sometime in mid-elementary school that I was being bullied, constantly, and none of the teachers or administrators gave a damn. When I started junior high in 7th grade it got worse, but by that point I had stopped complaining to anyone, because it wasn’t going to do any good. It was so bad that I begged my parents to let me switch to a different school for eighth grade. My parents went along with it. At the new school there weren’t as many people (partly because there was about a tenth the number of students in the 8th grade at this school), but there was Josh, who took an immediate dislike to me. In addition to shoving me around and such, Josh liked to steal things from me (facilitated by tables instead of desks in the classroom), and call me fun names like ‘slut’ and ‘cum-guzzler’ and ‘stupid bitch’ and ‘should be shot’.
That went on for a couple months. Sometime that winter we were sitting in social studies when Josh, as usual, reached over and grabbed my notebook from me, no doubt intending to add to the pleasant things he’d written in it before. I still have no idea exactly what happened in my head, but I very suddenly decided I was sick of just putting up with it, so I got up and punched him, in the face, repeatedly. I stopped when he fell out of his chair and our teacher finally noticed.
Ultimately, I had to go have repeated chats with the school psychologist and periodically had my stuff searched*. Josh was told to apologize to me for teasing me - which, despite being totally unsupervised at the time, he actually did. My parents were notified but only after a couple weeks**, and they didn’t have a clue what to do, so they didn’t do anything and in fact never mentioned it to me until shortly before I graduated high school. Josh, after apologizing, did not ever touch me nor say another word to me, and in fact avoided me as much as possible. His buddy/accomplice once tried to start something with me not long after that. I told him to leave me the hell alone. He did.
Anyway, I’m sorry that that’s long and rambly. My point is, absolutely violence should not ever be encouraged or condoned. It should, however, be acknowledged that life can be kind of a bitch even at a very young age, and sometimes telling a kid to just ignore it/tell a teacher/etc will be about as useful as telling them to just go to Mercury to solve it.
*This was less than a full year after the Columbine shootings, and I’m pretty sure they were convinced I was going to be the next Dylan Klebold.
**I did not know the reason for the delay at the time. Apparently the school thought that if they told my parents and my parents punished me I would commit suicide.
“Kid” might include a pretty big range of ages. There’s a big difference between what we expect from a 6 year old and what we expect from a 12 year old. That said, the last time I got into a fight was in 7th grade. Mike and I had a falling out the previous summer and he had been verbally abusing me since the beginning of the year. One of the reasons I didn’t pound his ass sooner was because I was bigger and stronger than him and I didn’t want to look like a bully. One morning before school started he laid into me again and that was the finally straw. I shoved him, he shoved back, and we started fighting. About 20 minutes later he walked up to me in the cafeteria and said “the only reason you won is because your bigger than me” and he started in with the insults again. So, I kicked his ass again. This time we got caught and sent to the principals office.
The administrators were surprisingly sympathetic to my plight. It probably helped quite a bit that I remained calm, answered the principals questions, and otherwise kept my mouth shut when we were being questioned. I was on the football team and I expected to receive a few licks as was the standard punishment for anyone on the team who got into a fight. (This was Texas.) I suppose the coach was familiar with Mike and his antics and this must have bee the reason he didn’t punish me. I was sent home for the day and spent the next three days in school suspension and the verbal bullying stopped after that little incident.
At the time I was pleased as punch about what I did. I was a kid though. Now, I’m sure Mike was probably going through some problems of his own and beating the tar out of him probably wasn’t the most appropriate response. However, as a child, I didn’t really know what my options were. I tried ignoring him, avoiding him, and returning his insults but none of that seemed to do any good. I certainly couldn’t run to the administrators with my problems because that would break the school yard omertà and make me a social pariah.
I don’t think I’d teach my kid that it’s ok to physically attack someone because of what they said. I wouldn’t want to give them the idea that it’s ok to hurt someone just because they say something we might not like. I can certainly understand why it might happen though.
Kids can’t walk away all the time. Adults can. We have a choice of where to work, who to interact with, who to live with. Kids don’t have any of that, because they’re forced to go where we tell them to, and they have no other option. Kids CANT always walk away from a bully, and sometimes a bully needs to get punched in the nose. Kids have to understand what kind of responsibility they’re taking on by doing something like that though, and make the decision whether hitting someone is worth the punishment they’re going to get.
I was taught from an early age to just walk away and ignore it - fighting back would only make it worse. The only reason it stopped is because I switched from a public school in 8th grade to a parochial high school freshman year, where everyone was new and the cliques hadn’t formed.
Looking back on it, I realize the lessons came from a bully himself - one I couldn’t escape by switching schools - and I think I might have gotten some peace in the schoolyard by standing up for myself at a couple of points.
I agree with posters like Mosier and NinjaChick, and Odesio to some extent; I wouldn’t teach my stepsons that hitting someone is an acceptable way of resolving a conflict but it could be a method of last resort if the bully just won’t stop - and be ready to face the consequences once that line gets crossed.
My thinking on this has changed quite a bit over the 21 years since I first became a parent. When my 3 kids were in grade/middle school, my firm opinion was that violence was NEVER appropriate. I may even have gone so far as to say if my kid got hit (at least at school), they should report the other kid to a responsible adult, rather than responding physically. Now I believe that position was wrong, and that in at least some instances it is appropriate for a kid to respond physically to verbal bullying.
My son, now 19, was bullied quite a bit. Most of it was verbal teasing, but on at least a couple of occasions his glasses were broken. In kindergarten, one other kid kept stealing his mittens. Some pushing and shoving here and there, cutting in line ahead of him. That kind of thing. (One difficulty with young kids is you often do not get a perfecty clear picture of what actually happened.)
I went with him to a series of classes on how to avoid being bullied - essentially being willing to agree that he was somehow responsible, either by how he conducted himself, or through his inability to properly interpret social clues. And I think there was SOME element of that. But not entirely.
At one point in junior high, this one kid was relentlessly hassling him. We had requested that they not be put in the same classes, saying our kid shouldn’t have to put up with it. One day the kid was going on to my kid about what a whore my kid’s mom was - really vulgar stuff. My kid hauled off and smacked him. My kid got suspended, but the other kid never bothered him again. From that point on, I decided that it might have been better if my kid had smacked some of the little bastards who had been making his life hell for years.
My non-expert guess is that bullies are pretty adept at singling out as victims kids who will not strike back. Looking back at it, I regret that I so strongly influenced my kid to be one of those.
It depends entirely on the nature of the bullying or insult, of course, but to paraphrase the Duke: sometimes a kid’s gotta do what a kid’s gotta do. I know full well that my ideas about honor and principle are social dinosaurs to most folks, but I’m trying to pass them on to my boys. Somewhere in those concepts is the firm belief that it’s okay to punch a guy in the nose if he calls your mother a whore. This is tempered with the idea that it’s usually preferable to use wit - instead of throwing that punch, turn the insult back on the bully. This will often lead to any punches thrown falling under the more socially acceptable realm of “self defense”. Sadly that too is quickly becoming unacceptable.
Spot on. Both my sons had bully problems around the 6-8th graders. Neither were obvious targets other than they were in some sort of after-school program where there was little supervision. We tried the talks about turning the other cheek and trying to befriend the bully. In the end I had to say, if you are in a situation where there are no adults around - and that is the very situations the bullies find - then you have to make the call. If they feel threatened then they make the call to use force. They just have to expect to hear from me afterward because I don’t approve of fighting.
One of my boys was walking home from school with a friend. They were surrounded by 3 or 4 older kids that were somewhat aggressive, calling them names and perhaps shoving (hard to get a straight answer), certainly knocking books and band instruments out of hands. In adult world that is far over the line and I would use force to stop that behavior toward me and/or my friends. Why shouldn’t a child be allowed to do the same? My advice to my son was, if you feel you must, to strike fast and hard and don’t stop - use a big stick if possible.
Whatever the “correct” answer is, I just can’t picture my own flesh and blood having to put up with aggressive bullying and at the same time worrying about getting in trouble with Dad.
And for the record - this same son was hit more than once in school. The school was only interested in what he said to cause someone to hit him. I guess they know who the bullies are and they are tired of bothering them about their behavior.
Kids and adults play by different rules. If a kid is being relentlessly teased, a good smack would shut the teaser right up. They’ll probably end up being best friends anyways.
Children lead warring lives. If you don’t believe that, you had an atypical childhood. IME, a good hard poke in the mouth is quite often the solution to bullying. Verbal, physical…it doesn’t matter what kind of bullying, a black eye or a split lip takes all the joy right out of it.
That and the bully being a lot stronger than your kid. There seems to be an assumption in this thread that the bully will go bother someone else after the fight, but s/he may just be the type of child who doesn’t mind fighting, and is happy to keep the conflict going at the next level.
Precisely. You can’t avoid some asshole who’s in your class, or who you’ll have to share a cafeteria or recess yard with. I should know - I faced bullying for most of my pre-college scholarship. I did nothing, said nothing, didn’t fight back and just took it in the hope that eventually the bullies would lose interest. That was what the adults kept telling me, wasn’t it ? And they did, sorta - they didn’t focus on bullying me, they just did matter of factly whenever our paths crossed, without even thinking about it. Going to the teachers didn’t help, hell they knew all about it anyway, and it just got me beat harder for a while until “normalcy” set back in.
And then someday a twig broke the camel’s back and I just snapped. I was 17. From then on, I was generally avoided as That Crazy Guy. From their point of view, it was irrational and uncalled for to send someone to the infirmary for cutting you in the line like it didn’t matter. I suppose it was, at that. Still, being avoided from then on was a damn sight better than being ignored or jerked around all the time, from my point of view.
And had I been more assertive and replied to early bullying with milder violence, nipping it in the bud, I think my childhood would have been happier. Maybe not. But I do know living in constant fear and feeling, no, *knowing *you’re worthless sucks.
I know this much: If you don’t fight back, you find a permanent place on the short list of preferred targets for bullying.
There is a minority of bullies who like to fight. The majority are looking for a victim to torment and will seek softer targets who do not retaliate effectively.
“Effectively,” in this case, is defined as “causing enough pain and injury to take the fun out of it.”
That was a watershed moment that helped shaped my confidence in myself for the better. At that point, I became more focused on what I was thinking about myself rather than what other people were thinking about me.
But would I give my son shit about it if he did hit some one for being an asshole? No.
I remember once my nephew was being harrassed * while he was in class, trying to learn*. The offending kid (who was setting at the desk directly in front of him) kept telling my nephew that if he didn’t give him a dallar after class that he was going to give him a beatdown.
My nephew knew he couldn’t take this guy toe to toe as he was a bit bigger than him. So his solution to the problem was to wait for the bully to turn back around to the front of the class and then proceed to lay into him with several sucker punches. (Which he did). Right there in the middle of class.
The bully got bruised up pretty bad but I can’t say I felt sorry for him; nor can I say my nephew did the wrong thing.