Should we teach our kids to hit back?

Great Debates
1

As I recall, my parents have very few fights about how I was to be brought up. This was one of them. My mother believed that I should be taught that violence is never the answer and that I should always walk away from confrontations before they became physical. My father pointed out that if the teacher didn’t say anything when he hit me, he probably wouldn’t say anything when I hit him back, and ensured that I knew how to do so. Now, there were two times that I actually encountered physical bullying during high school. In the first, I just stood there, and got my nose broken. In the second, I hit the offender in the face with a T-square. In both cases, I was given a day’s suspention for being in an altercation, although my behavior in the first incident consisted entirely of holding onto my lunch money. Based on this, my rudimentary knowledge of game theorym and the fact that the second incident was the last I had with that bully, I feel confident in saying that it is probably wise to hit back.

But, should we teach our kids this, as a matter of course? Many teenagers are little bastards, and the last thing I want is for more of them to have an excuse to be violent towards each other. On the other hand, given that there are some teenagers who will bully others, and that at least some of them either stop or find new targets if they get their own back, it seems eminently reasonable to tell kids that if they hit you, you’re allowed to hit back. If I ever have kids, this is exactly the approach I’d take. What does the rest of the Dope think?

2

My daughter has already been taught to avoid confrontations, but also that if she is hit or grabbed she has every right to hit back or extricate herself with force if need be. And in fact this already happened. A bully at her school had been going around grabbing girls by the ankles and upending them, then sitting on them and such. Really scaring the girls. He tried it with my daughter, and when he reached down for her ankles she kicked him. Then she pushed him over and told him never to do it again.

Now he’s her biggest fan. She’s in Grade 1. He’s in Grade 3.

3

I would do the same thing my parents did with me - find a decent martial arts school that teaches the philosophy of martial arts along with the physicality of fighting. Just teaching a kid to fight - like they do on sitcoms where the dad takes the kid to the backyard and shows him how to punch - is like giving him a gun and not teaching him gun safety. Most gun enthusiasts will say that weapon safety is the most important thing of owning a gun (and, sadly, the most neglected from paranoia. If you have a gun in the household, I’d consider teaching the kids about it, what it can do, and how to use it, rather than keeping it in the happy fun mystery box).

I learned judo. Not the most kick-ass martial art, and often decried as a “showcase” art, it is nonetheless useful in defusing situations. When someone throws a punch and ends up on their bum or pushed away, they think twice about throwing another punch at you, and more importantly, it gives them an opportunity to back down before the fight escalates to a point where one of you is going to be bleeding. Half of the fights I was in in school, I was able to just get close to the other kid and prevent him from hitting me hard enough to do damage.

Half of these fights are a matter of face. If you step up and enter the fight, neither of you can really back down. In a schoolyard, if you are able to fend off the person long enough, someone will break it up. Outside, all you need to do is disable them long enough to escape, and they’ll usually leave you alone. You also need to know when to fight and when not to, which is a much more subtle art.

Another note - I have a friend who, in addition to having been a black belt, quite likes to dip into the sauce quite heavily. More than once, he has wanted to fight me in an inebriated state. I’ve always been glad that I was able to handle him without physically harming him, until he sobered up.

4

I totally believe that a child who’s hit should hit back. A lot of the time, what makes a difference between a kid getting picked on once, and constantly getting picked on, is whether or not that child sticks up for themselves. Even if the child looses the fight, just the fact that they stuck up for themselves can be enough to keep other kids from picking on them.

When I was a kid, I was a total wimp, and an easy target for bullies. The councilors, and others I saw about it used a lot of psycho babble bullshit like “They’re only doing it because they’re insecure” or “They’re afraid that if they don’t pick on you, you’ll pick on them.” :rolleyes: And then gave me useless advice like “Try this, when someone insults you, give them a compliment.” :confused: I forget the “reasoning” behind this, something about supposedly confusing them, or something.

Anyway, looking back, the answer to my problems is obvious, I was a wimp who wouldn’t stick up for myself and thus, was an easy target because I didn’t fight back. Had I stood up for myself, and swung a fist or two when needed, my childhood would have been much much better.

5

Great debate topic.

I’ve got 3 kids, 2 of them boys, all of them now adults. I’ve had to deal with this issue several times over the last 20 years.

The problem with kids is, you can’t teach wisdom. Wisdom comes with experience, and age. You can teach a kid how to defend himself, but it’s difficult to teach the wisdom that is needed to know when to do what and when. There is a time to walk away. There is a time to SMASH someone in the nose. There’s a time to run like hell 'till you drop. Every situation is unique, so it’s hard to teach a kid when to do what. Only wisdom (age + experience) can teach that.

I taught my kids self defense.
It never was a real issue until my youngest was in 10th grade. A bully who was on his ass for over 6 months finally had him cornered. (true story here: ) My son did as I instructed him: pulled his head down by the hair and smashed the punks face with his knee. While the bully lay on the ground, crying like a pussy, my son turned around and walked away. Like I taught him: he walked away. Like a man! He could have went nuts and jumped on the guy, but he didn’t let emotions dictate his actions. He got suspended, but the D.A. declared he did nothing wrong. No charges filed.

The problem is, it’s hard to teach that kind of control to a teenage kid. He could have gone nuts and started kicking that boy while he layed on the ground, turning justified self defense into an assault.
I say, teach self defense, and try to drum in self control. It is impossible though, to teach wisdom. Teach them to fight back, and try hard to teach them WHEN to fight back, and when to walk away (and when to run). Easier said than done, I’ll quickly admit!!

6

Excuse the pun, but I think pkbites has hit it on the nose…

I made it through jr. high and high school basically walking away from everything (not that I got into those sorts of situations often). I did notice that the kids who got picked on constantly (that is, openly rather than the usual sort of sniping that goes on in those social dynamics) and never stood up for themselves were always picked on, at least until 10th grade when people got a car and spent all their time on that. The kids who fought back ended up always getting into fights from there on out.

That said, one of the things that kept the behind-the-back sorts of comments from becoming violence was generally the threat of retaliation. In Jr. High it was, “dude, he knows karate” and in high school it was, “dude, he’ll bite you or something” (I did wear all black, but as a theater kid, not a goth, of course, that would have different connotations today). I think we can all agree that a given person should know how to physically defend themself should that be necessary. Of course, determining when it’s necessary is the problem.

7

The most important lesson is to teach your kids when to pick their battles…physical or moral.

A bully is a fact of life.

Sometimes you score more points by walking away, but sometimes you really do have to dive in and kick ass. That bully could be the big kid in your class, but just as easily, the teacher.

I don’t have children, but if I did, I agree with giving them some classes in self defense. If for no other reason than running up against that oddball wearing the trenchcoat by the school grounds. But I would hope before anything gets out of hand with a schoolmate, my kid would let me know.

But ya know, this is a hard question to answer. Kids in my day fought with words or fists.

Today, they have knives or guns.

No easy answer here, and although I appreciate Airman Doors USAF off-hand remark, macho isn’t always the answer, as Dubya has proven beyond a doubt.

8

I would reiterate getting involved together with your kids in a family style martial arts program. Kids learn a lot about discipline, anger control, team work, etc as well as a physical skill that will be with them their entire lives.

Definately there is a time and a place to hit back. I’d even say there is a time and a place to hit first. And there are times to turn the other cheek or to walk away. At lot of times you don’t know what is the best course of action until there is 20-20 hindsight.

9

This was my experience as well. I was told to defend myself, but that if I picked a fight, I’d be SOL as far as my parents were concerned. The way I saw it, the kids who lost, but still fought back, were still respected for standing up for themselves, bruises (or worse) and all. The kids who did nothing, had the bruises, and a target after that. Still a tough thing to expect a kid to do, when the bully is 3 grades ahead of her. I think my experience involved a lot of luck, since I was tall, bullies seemed to avoid me.

10

I’m with Airman Doors here that learning to fight back is important. But it can’t just be a matter of a parent teaching a kid to fight and that’s the end. There must be a moral lesson in why fighting can be necessary.

My own lesson comes from my father (a fine good ol’ boy from Louisiana) who told me when I was small (maybe 6 or 7) that he never expected me to start a real fight (as opposed to a fun one between friends) but that if I found myself in one I should take whatever steps I needed to end it right away. Don’t make it a ‘fair fight’ or any of that nonsense. If ending it meant getting the other guy in the balls right off then do it. Oh, and never start a fight with a girl but don’t let them hit you any way other than in your heart.

Dad’s an interesting chap, I must admit.

I admit, this philosophy has served me well. Not only in fights are such but in most phases of life. Business, personal, what-have-you…never look for confrontations but when one comes along act as strongly as you can (and overwhelmingly if possible) to end it right away in your favor.

Hell, ask Airman Doors how quickly I came at him in a trivia contest a few years ago!

Too often in today’s society we are told to be passive and be victims. We’re told by school counselors to walk away from bullies and by cops to let the mugger rob us. But what sort of lesson does that teach both the predator and the preyed upon? That’s it’s safe to prey on other people and that the prey is powerless.

But we’re not. Even if you lose the bully knows it’s not so easy. Even if the mugger beats (or kills) you he’ll be more wary next time.

Heck, look at the 9/11 attacks. Three planes full of people (who had overwhelming numbers on their side) followed the plan and passively let themselves die in horrendous attacks. One planeful of people (who by them knew what was up) counterattacked and died without letting the fourth attack happen. And we hail those passengers as heroes today because they didn’t behave like victims.

With that example what do you think will happen with the next hijacking? With luck they’ll fight back again.

So I’m all for responding to bullies with force. Drive the lesson home for BOTH parties. The bully learns that he can get hurt and the victim learns the power they control.

11

I’d rather see kids being taught when and how to fight back – this means using no more and no less force than it takes to be able to walk away if force becomes necessary, not beating the living daylights out of the other – than being told the stuff I was told. “Don’t react and they’ll stop,” is bull. “Don’t react and they’ll escalate until you can’t help it, and then we’ll blame you,” is more like it. I wasn’t physically bullied but from what I’ve heard here and in RL is that the same crappy advice is given to kids in that situation. I have no idea why we expect kids to put up with the same sort of intimidation that, if it happened to us, would be cause for the bully to be arrested.

Being a total geek, I have a B5 quote that seems appropriate here. “Never start a fight, but always finish it.”

12

The phrase “never start the fight, but be damned sure you always finish it if you are involved in one” springs to mind.

I always fought back on the few occassions I was hit. In my mind, there’s a pretty string link between the regular victims of bullies and their unwillingness to hand out a good hiding when it’s needed.

13

Hm. Much of what I would have said has already been said.

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” I like that phrase, but I don’t agree with it. Violence, or the threat of same, is a great way to get whatever you want, and often with surprisingly little consequence. Its main disadvantage is that when it fails, it can backfire to a remarkably destructive degree.

Violence dehumanizes. Violence quite often begets more violence. Violence, ultimately, is pretty destructive. Violence makes you unpopular, and limits your ability to interact with others, once the word gets around. But if you don’t care about any of this stuff, it’s a perfectly functional adjunct to your lifestyle.

I’m not advocating it, certainly. But some people do. They live their lives that way. Their children generally grow up thinking violence is normal, or even cool, or at the very least, an acceptable method of interacting with people.

And some folks don’t understand anything BUT violence. I knew a guy, once, who was a good example. He knows what he knows, and if he doesn’t want to know it, he denies its existence, and if you can whip him, well, by God, you must be a better man than he is. This, by the way, automatically makes him smarter than Stephen Hawking.

He beat the living crap out of his son for years. He did it to make the boy tough, and to teach him to take it, and to make him determined not to take it when he got older. His children are grown, and hate him, now. He thinks that’s okay. It’s natural. But at least his son isn’t a wussy. He’d have a tough time living with the idea that his son had grown up to be a wussy. He’d feel that he’d failed as a father.

I’m not wild about teaching children to fight; children are going to spend many years working out pecking order and the use of power in personal relationships, and teaching them how to more effectively damage each other in the course of this strikes me as unwise.

On the other hand, leaving them at the mercy of the children of brutal fools strikes me as equally dumb.

Seems to me that if one is going to teach a child how to fight, then one should also instill the structure and philosophy to go with it… and that’s the hard part. There’s a big difference between a strong silent heroic defender of the right and a selfish brutal thug. Kid should know that, and should be inclined to motivate in the right direction… and as the parent, it’s my job to see that this happens, don’cha think?

14

Some quick background: my parents divorced amicably when I was 5. Mom had custody, but Dad had open visitation, and they have remained friends until Mom’s death this January.

Anyway, Mom was of the “violence never solved anything” school, and absolutely refused to hear any other view on the topic. In the interest of peace, Dad abided by Mom’s decision.

As a result, a band of junior thugs mad my life miserable from 5th through 8th grades. Every teacher I told had the bland platitudes of “violence never solved anything.” On the rare occasions that they spoke up, the thugs received a bland (and totally ineffective) admonition to “Stop.” This was good until the teacher went away, and then I got it paid back to me in spades from the thugs.

Typical bullies, they always acted in a minimum of pairs, often as many as four or more at a time. Fighting back was not much of an option.

Oddly, it was the Boy Scouts that taught me to fight back. I went to the National Scout Jamboree in '81, and made some good friends who taught me a few things about self-respect and standing up for myself.

Fortunately, the next school year (freshman in high school), the “band of thugs” was broken up. I still had to fight the toughest of the thugs, and got my butt whupped; but he also had a black eye, a bloody nose and sore testicles. The rest of the “band” left me the hell alone for the rest of my time in high school after that fight. Oddly enough, he respected me quite a bit after that, to the point of standing behind me and watching my back in one other totally unrelated fight in my sophmore year.

Ironically, the “leader” of the thugs tried to start something (before my fight with the tough guy) and quickly backed down when I seemed ready (even eager!) to throw down. I’m fairly certain that he was the one who set the “tough guy” on me.

I only had a very rough “guide” of when and when not to fight, and only my own judgement as to which was which, and when to “stop.” Since none of my “victims” wound up in a hospital, I suppose I did alright.

In an interesting aside, I had heard from my sister that my niece and nephew were having problems with the neighborhood bullies. In an unplanned event, I took them shooting with me last fall. While they did okay, they weren’t anything special with a pistol. When I got them home that afternoon, the local thugs were riding their bikes out-and-about in their neighborhood.

Bold little assholes that they were, they had the nerve to ride right up to us and ask them, “Where they you two been all day, hiding?” They had evil sneers down pat.

I cheerfully piped up, telling them that I had taken them shooting. I then pulled out my target and showed them. The ten-rings in the chest and face area were prominently missing, and I asked them, “They’re pretty good, huh?” (I am much better than “okay” with a handgun).

That was the last time the local thugs have said anything more than “Hi-How-Are-ya?” to my niece and nephew.

It’s amazing what a few well-placed words (and shots) can do to the attitude of juvenile delinquents.

15

When I was in school, I studied a martial art. I was good at it. For unrelated reasons, I got into many fights. They always went the same way: guy throws a punch, I block it, I step in, I throw him. Repeat as needed. It was a good technique; it gave the aggressor a chance to think things over, and I looked like a model of self-restraint whenever the issue came before the principal. I rarely had a problem with the same guy twice, since I’d demonstrated that I could manhandle him as I chose.

But I was lucky. I went to a small rural school: no gangs, no weapons, no drugs other than marajuana. I didn’t need to worry that the bully I’d humiliated would pull a knife on me, or that he and his six older friends would jump me after school. The stakes are higher than they used to be, and there’s no victory in baiting a bully into trying to kill you.

My children will learn a martial art, as I did. They’d do that even if I knew they’d never get into a fight in their lives. I’ll probably tell them to do as I did. But it’s not as safe a way to win respect as it used to be, and that’s really the goal.

On preview:

:confused:

16

I would teach my child the ‘hundred ways to kill’.

17

I think your premise is wrong if you are asserting that defending one’s self is an act of violence. If someone is kicking my ass and I half to poke them to stop then poke them I will. The alternative is a continued ass kicking. Violence is not the infliction of pain on someone. It is the unprovoked infliction of pain on someone.

There are issues of violence that can be attributed to defense such as joining a gang. Then you are getting into vengeance by association. On the flip side, it should be OK to intervene on the behalf of an innocent person getting pummeled. This is different than intervening in a fight (it takes 2 to fight). I took it on the chin in high school (literally) when I intervened in a classic bully confrontation. Not sure if the bully learned anything (other than it hurts to get hit) but at least he stopped his actions around me (thankfully).

18

I am not a guy, but I am married to one and have two lovely sons by him.

He was a good kid, but one who understood exactly what Chance’s dad was talking about. I suppose that nowadays you’d call him an Ender Wiggin type. When he was young (about 10? 12?), a bigger kid was bullying him and may have beaten him up once already. The next time the kid came at him, my hubby hit him in the face with a skateboard. Hard. With the trucks and wheels. End of harrasment, from any kid.

Do I want my sons putting other kids in the hospital? Hell, no. But my 4 year old is pretty wimpy and cries at the drop of a hat, and I am worried sick about him getting bullied. Yeah, I know, he’s only 4. But moms think about stuff like this.

Don’t start it, but once you’re in it, end it decisively. Amen.

19

My approach , was to put the bully into hospital , with as many injuries as possible. This was done for deterrence reasons ,as there was always someone that just had to see if it was a fluke if I won.

I can’t often say that I did run into true bullies , in as much as they were normal kids , that had superiority issues with nerds like me , or geeks or what ever the common parlance was at the time. But the ones that were , were the sweet fights when won ,and a respite for a time , till he got enough courage to try again.

Some one else mentioned downthread that he was proud that the kid was able to put the bully on the ground ,without a boot to the head , me , that bully would have had at least a minor concussion, and back in the 70’s grade school, no cop would have said boo.

Declan

20

Of course a child should be taught that it is right and good to defend oneself from violent force. But we should also teach children that violence is a last resort, to be used when there is no other reasonable alternative. And we should teach them what those alternatives are. Fights can, are frequently are the result of bullying. When a bully physically confronts another, and the potential victim gets the better of him, that’s a good thing. When a potential victim fights back, and the bully decides it’s better to leave that particular target alone, that’s a good thing.

There are some situations in which walking away simply isn’t an option. But there are situations in which walking away before the situation becomes physical is an option, and in such situations it is usually the best option. An argument doesn’t have to escalate into a fight, and it won’t if one party is willing to simply walk away, or let the other have the last word. Offensive words tell us a lot about the person uttering them, but nothing about the target. Teasing and name-calling are a kind of game, engaged in for the purpose of provoking a reaction; when you react strongly to words, you are giving them, and the person using them, the power. Words by themselves, no matter how offensive, are not justification for violence in retaliation. Often, this is exactly what the bully wants, it gives the bully a justification for the violence he wishes to inflict.

Yes, I will teach my kids to defend themselves against violence with force when necessary, but I’ll also teach them that it’s better to avoid or defuse the situation before it reaches that stage whenever possible.