Don’t tell your child to fight back. [More]Just give attackers what they want. And by not fighting back, you'll guarantee they get it.
Whatever they want.
You might want to wipe your chin there, Sharon Kennedy Wynne. You seem to have a bit of cud drool...
[Via Ed M]
One of my granddaughters is being bullied at school. She just turned six. The bully is a problem child that the school knows about, but haven't done anything. Her mother has told her the next time he puts his hands on her she is to hurt him as badly as she can. The very same thing I taught her when she was little. My daughter has informed the principal of this and said there had not better not be any repercussions from the school since they defaulted on their chance to do anything about it and were aware of it.
ReplyDeleteI am so proud of that girl.
I remember when she was a sophomore in high school and I came in from work and she was sitting on the couch crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said she got in a fight at school. A senior boy slapped her in the face because she turned him down for a date. She wasn't allowed to date at the time, anyway.
She took out his knee, just like I taught her, when he reached to grab it and doubled over, she kneed him in the face and broke his nose, knocking him back into the lockers and down. She then jumped on him and punched him silly.
I told her not to worry, she wouldn't be in trouble with the school I would make damn sure of it. She said she wasn't in trouble with the school. The only teacher who saw it was a young lady with more sense than most and had seen the whole thing. She turned around and went back into the classroom as she determined that what should have happened did and she just didn't need to see everything since the school policy was idiotic.
I asked my daughter why she was crying then, and she said "Because Daddy, I let you down. I didn't break his knee, I just dislocated it." I am so proud of that girl.
She wasn't a pugnacious kid, she didn't look for trouble and was rather slim and very feminine, but like her mother she wouldn't be abused. I taught her how not to be.
The only trouble she was in from me was a mild chiding for not remembering that those things I taught her were so she could get away and that she placed herself at more risk by jumping on him against the locker where his superior upper body strength could have turned the fight around on her.
The boy actually grew into a decent young man, joined the Marines learned, how to fight, but he also learned when not to. He actually looked her up and apologized when he came home from boot camp.
I have always been grateful to that young teacher who had enough sense not to have the system grind them both up and ruin their futures.
With bullies that is all you can do. Some of them never learn, no matter what, but none of them learn if bullying keeps working for them.
I blame the parents of kids who killed themselves as much as I blame the bullies. Their children had to have not been given the sense of self-worth that would make them resistant and the tools to make that resistance effective.
That may sound harsh when speaking of parents of a dead child. But what you do or don't always has consequences. Unfortunately the price is often paid by others.
One of the comments at the link: http://www.violentacres.com/archives/64/how-to-fight/
ReplyDeleteWritten more than 3 years ago, a woman tells what her dad taught her when she was six about how to deal with bullies.
I think her dad and SA have more than a little in common. It would be a better world if there were more like them.
Bullies do what they do because they think they can get away with it. As a kid - once I figured that out - bullying was not a problem. They looked away when they saw me coming 'cause they knew there was a price to be paid for picking on me - even if they prevailed initially.
ReplyDeleteThe same way of thinking served me well into adulthood. Bullies look for people who will submit to their bullshit - and if you don't act that way - they'll try to find someone else.
I also think there's a lot to be said for people who won't stand to see other people bullied and that there's no age too early to develop that view.
Like Cooper said:
"I would like very much to ensure—and in some cases I have—that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy."