Do you teach your kid about bullying?

When my son was scolding his younger sister, I intervened. I told him to go look up the word ‘browbeating.’ He eagerly ran to do that. He got the message. He doesn’t bully.

I think it’s an attitude you start with from day one. “in this family, we look out for the underdog. We protect and advocate for the weak, we stand up for victims. It’s just who we are. ”

We have talked about it casually and consistently ever since my kids were young. Opportunities to discuss it come up all the time, from taking turns with each other, to not pushing or being mean at the park. Since they started school bully-proffing and anti-bullying have been a regular part of the curriculum.

Only one has had a small problem with a bully. He told me about the situation when it happened and we discussed his options for dealing with it. In the end he came up with a plan and handled the situation. The other two handle those types of things with humor. Yesterday when he was trying to get to his locker my middle son said “excuse me” to a kid who was blocking his way. The kid looked at him and told him to shut up. My son responded with “you’re welcome”. The kid said “I told you to shut up” to which my son said “I heard you and I said ‘you’re welcome.’” The kid was so flustered he shook his head and walked away. The story made me smile. They also each have stories of stopping bulling they have witnessed, which is what makes me the most proud.

I agree with @Judi. All three of my children were (are) kind and compassionate from a very young age. They just knew that that type of behavior (bullying) was wrong. They would often tell me of times when they had a friend or knew of someone who was being bullied and they would tell me how bad they felt for this friend. They always offered some type of support or friendship to the friend who was being bullied.

We sent them to a school that has a serious anti-bullying program. Teachers and parents are on the lookout for this kind of thing and deal with it quickly. It’s a small school, so everyone knows who is doing what, anyway.

My daughter was always a peacemaker, apparently. She was always doing things to make the group run smoothly. So much so, that towards the end of her career there, the teachers were telling us she should look out for herself more. So much so, that they didn’t care if she wanted to skip school to do so. It’s as if they were saying she was too good for her own good.

My son also had been at the center of a certain group of boys—not through active leadership, I don’t think, but more through presence. He does the things he is interested in and is very focused on them, and slowly, other boys seem to be attracted to him like accretion layers on a planet. He is a sweet boy. Gentle and loving. And he gets away with it, somehow. I mean the girls and the teachers love him, but even the boys like him. I guess it helps that he’s naturally physically capable.

As a result, bullying has not been a problem that I know of. The kids really love their school. They will probably feel more loyalty to their elementary and middle school than to high school or college throughout life.

We didn’t really train them in any of this. The school provided the training. I guess their temperaments have something to do with us. I don’t remember making a conscious effort to teach values. Values, perhaps, are something that you do more than talk about. I mean, it’s not bad to talk about them, but I think kids learn more from how they see you behave than from what you say.

My boy was always the biggest kid in his class so he never became a target but he inherited that trait so he was lucky. He has told us of numerous times when he pulled tinier friends out of situations where they were being bothered. If a kid was a buddy of my boy it was defacto insurance.
It is a delicate situation for kids to handle bullies because it often makes things worse for them. Everyone hates a snitch. Bullies are hard to handle the civilized way so i will up and say it . Bullies don’t respond well to authority. So my advise is to tell my kid it’s not bad to be held in detention or even expelled for a few days if they simply beat the shit out of a persistent bully. Even if the bully wins that one there will be a new found respect for your kid for trying. Sometimes teachers can be complete pussies about this kind of drama and make shit worse for the victim. This smacks in the face of the progressive clique here on fluther but it’s what works. Sometimes talking things out like this is wrong. People make this more complicated than it is.

Come on, @woodcutter. Violence is for people who are too stupid to think their way out of trouble. Even you believe in avoiding trouble, if your story about your son is the truth.

My experience as a bullied kid is that bullies DO respond well to authority @woodcutter. They were the kiss ups. The ones who were sweet to the teachers and teachers pet then ripped the weak apart behind the teachers back. They may not have been physical bullies but they were emotional bullies and I think it’s sad that when a kid finally gets fed up and (albeit inappropriately) fights back, THEY get labeled the bully. This bully dynamic can’t be explained in a “who threw the first punch” sort of way. The bullying begins long before the first blow is thrown.

I didn’t specifically teach them about bullying. My oldest daughter was a skinny blond who wanted Karate lessons. I let her and she subsequently broke the arm of a boy that was much bigger and harassing her. Fortunately he was too ashamed to admit how his arm was broken. She quit karate and things got back to normal but that was the end of bullying for my kids. It may not of been right but it worked.

We aren’t a turn the other cheek family, we don’t have to be because we are big people to start with. I realize not everyone is so lucky. If a bully wants to mark us they probably have trouble buying underwear because their balls are too big. Sure it’s an alternative to “tell” on the assholes who try to make life miserable for us but that simply takes too damn long in my real life experiences.

No one is doing that bully any good by letting them think all they have to do to get by in life is to pull an “Eddy Haskel” for the benefit of the authority figures just long enough to skate. If police involvement is called for well then we have already gone waaay beyond the point of discussion. In for a penny…in for a pound.

I’ve talked to my son a lot about bullying. We’ve talked about what it is, what to do if it happens to him, and why it’s important for him to not be a bully. We’ve used things that have come up around us as talking points. Over the past few years, he’s been reading the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” books and there have been a lot of opportunities for us to talk about what happens in those books. All of the schools he’s went to have had anti-bullying programs in place as well, so he’s also been taught various things from his schools.