I have a son in the 6th grade. Their are the occasional boys who decide to pick on him and give him trouble. Now I’m not worried about anything difficult. My son is extremely physically capable, plays football, hockey, and has won karate tournaments. He could take on any kid. Its the little annoyances from kids that get him. Like being rude or annoying or making bad remarks.
Now my wife tells him to brush stuff like that off and to not retaliate and if necessary to tell teachers. The old “it takes a bigger man to walk away from a fight” mantra.
I am of the opinion that kids have to be able to stand up and in the world of 6th graders, what we do as adults doesnt work out. That being strong is how one gets respect. With that I’ve told him to be a nice person and to never instigate things.
One can be just as strong, and it’s just as useful a life skill, when you know which things to ignore and walk away from. If anything, we have too many adults who react strongly to small frustrations in this world right now.
You’re both right. As Ecclesiastes hath said “There’s a time to stand up & a time to suck it up”. Turn turn turn.
Since he can physically take care of himself, if he’s witty & sarcastic, that can be a good response mechanism. (Or that could be seen as instigating.)
Getting bullied a little bit may not be such a bad thing. Your son will learn to make adjustments to his behavior that might be calling attention to itself, in some cases he may learn to be more assertive and just call them out. To some extent it can be just part of growing up unless it becomes a serious problem.
My father was old school and taught us to take on any bully head on, if he was bigger, stronger and older then catch him off guard, if we had to call in an older brother or friend then bring in reinforcements but one way or another let that bully know you are not a good one to bully. I don't believe in that and raised my son differently. The issue never came up so I never had to deal with it. In all honesty I feel much worse over many of the fights I won than I do the ones I lost.
What are they saying to him, that is annoying him? Are these friends? At that age and older, sometimes, guys pick on their friends as a way of kidding around. Maybe your son isn’t fully aware of social cues and is taking things way to personally.
I have two girls, ages 12 and 13. I am always worried about this bullying thing. They seem to somehow have avoided any bullies thus far.
I hate bullying so much. If anyone ever bullied one of my girls, I honestly would probably go crazy.
I learned when I was young, that 99% of the parents of bullies are also a bully. I would go right to the little brats house, and possibly hurt someone. :mad::mad:
The majority of bullies will try out a number of different victims. Anyone who pushes back enough will be left alone. It’s the victims who don’t push back - the ones who try to be nice or are scared or who freak out - who become the targets of frequent, continual harassment.
It’s best for the target to be able to discourage any bullying the first time it happens. I don’t have a perfect answer for how to do this, only that I found when I was a kid, being as nasty and vicious as I could be would do the job. Other kids I knew seemed impervious to bullies, just shrugging them off with a kind of disbelieving ‘you can’t possibly think I’m going to put up with you’. I think the latter is a better answer, but it’s more difficult to pull off.
If your son can’t, then it’s time to bring in the adults. Schools have finally started to take bullying seriously. A note to the teacher should have the teacher pull the bully aside and put a stop to it. Should the teacher fail to do so, a follow up with the principal will almost certainly do it.
The one thing I can’t stress enough is that your son needs to know that it’s NOT okay for this kid to bully him and that it’s NOT his fault. Yes, there are some instances in which the target’s behavior drives the bullying. It’s called reactive bullying, and it’s by far a minority situation and one in which the bullying still needs to be stopped.
Have your son approach the PE coach and explain the situation to him. Ask the coach to set up a boxing match between your son and one of the taunters. That’s how it was handled back in my day in middle school. Usually the taunters backed out, or a mutual respect was worked out on the mats.
Wait now, have we reached the point where
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rude or annoying or making bad remarks.
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qualifies as bullying? Oh that is too precious for words. Tell your kid to come back and whine when the bullying actually, you know, happens.
When I was young I grew up in a really tough neighborhood. I remember one bully Cheri who when I was only 5 or 6, threw a broken plate from the garbage at me. My whole chin was sliced open, and I needed stitches. She was always picking on me.
One girl I rode the school bus with was quiet and shy, and was picked on. One bully after school one day started pushing the quiet girl around when we got off the bus. Well, before anyone could do anything, the quiet girl slammed the bully to the ground and proceeded to knock the crap out of her. She was never bullied again.
In my neighborhood if you put up a good fight just once, you were usually left alone.
I could never imagine my girls having to physically protect themselves. I swear, I would go crazy, and my survival mode would kick in, and I would probably get into trouble.
I do not believe stupid phrases like: Be a bigger person, Do not Respond, Just Walk Away, Tell an Adult.
The only way to stop a bully is to go down to their level, and scare the hell out of them. :mad:
There’s no one answer here because bullying takes many forms. My experience with physical bullying is that standing up to it works, in the right situation. The right situation being where you won’t get seriously injured or killed, otherwise running away makes a lot more sense.
When I have kids, I plan to teach them that they’d better not start a fight. But when someone else starts a fight, they won’t get in trouble with me for finishing it (and if they get expelled, we’ll find a better school). Verbal harassment is a little harder to prepare them for–you have to hope your child is resilient and quick with comebacks. If they’re not, then you can only deal with bullying as it happens. From an early age, you need to create an open environment for your kids. Where they can trust you to come to you with their problems, because you don’t judge them or hit them for making mistakes.
I will say it probably helps to put your kid(s) into activities that may provide a protective halo. I was a target, and might have been bullied a lot in high school. But I wasn’t, because the seniors in marching band had my back.
You must not remember being a child. Or possibly, you were the one doing the bullying and don’t like being told what you did was wrong.
One remark might or might not be bullying. It depends both on the remark and the context. “Dude, did you ever learn how to tie your shoes?” is not bullying when it’s said to a person of average or greater intellect and skill. It is bullying if you’re saying it to a child with a developmental disability. “You’re a fucking kike and you should have died in the ovens” is bullying under pretty much every circumstance. Can you understand the difference?
Verbal bullying harms the target. We’ve known this for a while. Allowing children to torture each other with words may have been okay when you were a child - it was tolerated when I was - but it isn’t anymore. You’re not tougher, stronger, or more righteous if you find this contemptuous; You are ill-informed, callous, or jaded.
As a kid, I had several cases where bullies tried to test out whether I’d be a good target. They actually did it a few times, but as you say, a sufficiently strong response seems to get it to stop. They’re looking for fulfillment of their own particular needs and won’t stay if they’re not getting what they want.
Part of my trick was to get an audience and then talk up all the negatives of being a bully. Things like “What kind of a moron would try to beat me up when I’m just standing here? A smart person would leave. You must be really insecure if you have make yourself feel better like this. Let’s do the smart thing and go back to class.” I think the crowd was a useful component - alone, the bullies might have just gotten pissed off and hit me anyway. But once I’ve convinced the crowd that only an insecure imbecile would hit me… well, hitting me looks like a pretty bad option and walking away is their way to show that they’re confident and intelligent. Plus, I’ll have lots of witnesses who all heard my side of the story.
If the OP’s kid is hearing things along the lines of what phouka says, then the OP should elaborate as such, but saying rude or annoying or making bad remarks seems several notches down from calling someone a fucking kike. Can you understand the difference?
Dude, underestimate the band at your peril. They run in packs, and they’re better armed than you realize. Think about it: large group of youths, identified by shared colors, with a mutual support code…it’s like taking on a street gang, only your beatdown will have a soundtrack.