To think that if children were told that actually, sometimes it's ok to hit back, we might not have such a huge bullying issue in this country?

[wannaBe]

So bullying is on the increase, and it seems that in truth, very little can or is being done about it.

We bring up our children to know that violence – all violence - is wrong. So if a child is bullying another child by hitting, kicking, etc etc we tell our children to walk away. and because no-one likes a grass, it is almost seen as unacceptable to tell someone you’re being bullied. So bullied child fears the reaction of the playground if they tell on the bully, and if the bullied child dares to hit back then it is him/her who gets the punishment when actually, hitting back is nothing more than self defence.

Bullies are generally cowards. So if someone stands up to them by hitting them back they will often back off.

So perhaps it’s time we stopped being so very correct about all this and accepted that actually, it’s perfectly ok, a good idea even, if sometimes a child stands up for themselves and hits back. And that if a bully has been habitually violent to others, it’s no more than they deserve if they get back what they’ve been giving out.

School bullying policies are clearly ineffectual. Young teen still commit suicide because they’re being bullied. Children are under more pressure than ever to fit in, and part of that is not speaking out because that makes you a grass in the eyes of your peers.

There is something very wrong with a world which often advocates giving children certain clothing labels/gadgets/material goods in order to prevent bullying, yet comes down hard on the bullied who fights back.

Has anyone yet addressed the question for whether bullying is actually on the increase?

I doubt it is. Still, any is too much.

One of the more interesting occasions at my school was when one particularly sharp-tongued boy spent a whole hour making gag after cruel gag at the expense of another boy who suffered from acne. This other boy waited until the end of the lesson, and then knocked seven bells out of his tormentor during break time. Sometimes it's best not to wait for one's tormentor to throw the first punch.

thebody Fri 04-Apr-14 07:54:13
"why would you not tell your child it's ok to hit back?

if an adult attacks you of course you would either fight/flight whatever you needed to do the time to survive."

As a small and rather weak female I would never try to fight back unless I had absolutely no other escape route because it would be a surefire way of getting more badly hurt. I would hate a society where there was any sort of onus or expectation on me to do so.

When burglars broke into a house where I was alone in the middle of the night, I did not try to ward them off physically and I would have been a bloody fool to do so as long as they were not physically attacking me. If anyone were to assault me in a public place I would yell for bystanders to get the police. Only if I were alone in a deserted area with an assailant hell bent on attacking me would I fight back. There is simply no way I could hope to win such a fight and neither could either of my children.

As parents we should expect schools to have a zero tolerance approach to bullying. We should expect them to drill their pupils in the routines they have to follow if anyone at all in the school is being hurt or frigthened. We should expect pupils to have been well enough taught to know that they were breaking school rules if they just stood by and let bullying happen. We should expect all school staff to react immediately and effectively to any report of bullying. Since some schools clearly manage this, there is no reason all schools shouldn't. If they don't, then we should be in the Headteacher's office asking some extremely searching questions.

I would really like some evidence for the "one good punch and they'll stop forever" approach. Because it doesn't fit either with my experience or my intuition. It seems to come from an old fashioned "Stand up to them, my boy-bullies are all cowards at heart and he'll respect you after you've thumped him" attitude. Which is better suited to the pages of Tom Brown's Schooldays than real life.

Yes - some bullies are just waiting for you to try and lash out because they think it's hilarious.

It is comfortable to assume bullies are cowards. It makes us - the bullied - feel better. Some are. Some aren't. Mostly, bullies are people in positions of some kind of power which they are wielding, and frankly that makes it hard strike back in a conventional manner precisely because they are exploiting a power imbalance (and often, in the case of kids, that's a physical imbalance) to do so.

The other thing is - none of this will stop cyber-bullying. Which is on the increase, by definition, because it didn't exist before there was a cyber to be a bully in. And the whole point is that you can't grab and hit the cyber-bullies.

if bullying is on the increase then imo more children are reporting it rather than it happening more we are more aware of it, children and adults like power and being in control that is why they bully it makes THEM feel better/stronger etc

My DS (absolutely tiny and not the type) punched the local bully. Bully had been at all the biters for weeks but when he picked on the littlest biter DS saw red and clobbered him. One good punch to the jaw.

Surprisingly bully's parents were straight round amazing how it's not 'kids being kids' when it their pfb

Unsuprisingly I was less than sympathetic to poor Johnny's plight and explained politely but in words of one syllable that when you literally ask for it sometimes people oblige-and they're much more likely to when you're beating on their baby sibling.

Bully hasn't stopped of course. They don't, they just move on to the next target mainly because their parents allow them to continue unfettered by the confines of morality but that's out of my remit.

So you're not bothered about trying to stop the bully- you just want him to move on to someone else.........

As a teacher and a mum my message is simply: "Don't hit first but always hit last." In other words finish it but don't ever go looking for a fight.

I get frustrated when I know bullying is going on at school, I get statements from various kids and then present it to management to deal with quite often I have seen that the offender gets a good letting off.

If I ran the school and had evidence someone was a bully I would do a name and shame assembly whereby I would make the pupil stand up in front of the whole school and admit to being a bully. I would also isolate them from friends for days at a time so they had to have lessons and breaks separately. More than one occurrence would lead to instant permanent exclusion. Before anyone says that often bullying is a manifestation of a child's unhappiness and problems I am not unsympathetic to that but regardless of how bad their home life may be they have no right to destroy the happiness of another child.

Maybe not PC but I think it would work.

As for cyber bullying - well I think parents sometimes just aren't clued up enough on it. I think anyone who isn't a FB friend with their teen is missing a trick. I fully understand teens need their independence etc but I wouldn't be happy to let a child be on there unsupervised and I count a child as someone up to the age of 16.

ankle didnt say that she wanted the bully to stop with her child she doesn't want the bully to hurt anybody what is she meant to do

I half agree with the OP. I think schools' bullying policies are often ineffective, and an awful lot of victim-blaming goes on. I don't think a child (or an adult) should ever initiate violence but sometimes "tit for tat" is the most effective strategy available.

But I would only ever advocate hitting back if you are absolutely sure that your child can hit the bully harder than the bully has hit them. (And also only works if there's only one bully rather than a gang of them.)

Otherwise they will end up getting a hell of a kicking from the bully, and probably the dopey school management will say "Well, it was six of one and half a dozen of the other" which is the one phrase I remember from my childhood that still enrages me.

IHaveAFifthSense.
Have you seen a teacher about this?

All this, 'only hit once you've been hit' is unfair advice. Once you've been hit you can become disabled and disorientated by the adrenaline. It takes a herculean effort to come back from that.

If you think is reasonable and effective to fight back you should tell your child to hit first and hit hard otherwise it's likely they'll take another kicking.

Very true little - perhaps 'don't go looking for trouble but you can defend yourself' is better advice?

I was bullied systematically for about 6 years (last couple at primary and first four at secondary).

I am now 36 and I still suffer the consequences. I can't believe that people like me for me, and I try to "buy" affection, and be perfect all the time so that people can't use anything against me.

Was it physical? Nope. Purely verbal.

Could the school do anything about it? Nope. They tried these discussions, but in essence it was me saying that X,Y & Z called me names, then X,Y & Z turned round and said "no! We didn't!" and the result was that I was told that I was being too sensitive and needed to toughen up.

Would hitting back have helped? Nope. They were never violent, they were far too clever for that.

Why was I bullied? Mainly because I was different. I was clever and didn't know how to hide it. My parents didn't like pop music so I didn't know what Radio 1 was, didn't know the latest music and didn't follow the charts and the boy bands. My mum was older than theirs with grey hair, depression and a complete lack of interest in fashion; so that was picked up on.

The only thing I can do to try to protect my son is to encourage his self-belief, teach him how the world is inherently unfair and that good doesn't always overcome evil, and people will always protect themselves and not others. Oh, and try to make sure that I always look nice, and don't give others ammunition to use against him.

It shouldn't be that way. People should be free to be themselves, but the reality is that life doesn't work that way. I bloody hate it sometimes.

I think so but also that it's not necessary to garner the sympathy vote by letting someone hit you first.

Let them know that you will support their actions to defend themselves even if that action doesn't look like the moral highground. Of course at this point you have to know you haven't raised a thug.

thanks mrsjay if I had a 'morality ray' or a 'self entitlement extinguisher' I'd be zapping bullies and their parents full time.

I'd like to think that a bully would stop when faced with someone fighting back but that's not what usually happens in real life.

What really happens is that they grow up to be bullying adults and breed bullying children themselves.

Xenadog I agree with you to a large degree and blaming the victim is all too common in schools.

I think we can all agree that schools need to do more in regards of bullying.

All too often there is some sort of small meeting between the kids, they get a telling off and that's that. Until it all starts up again the next day.

Schools to be honest, and in my experince of someone who has been bullied and now has a daughter going through it, need to have a zero tollerance approach to bullying and grow a pair when it comes to dealing with the bullies and their parents.

They can have as many meetings as they like between the kids but it wont do anything. Schools need to be tougher, remember what it was like when they were kids and deal with the parents harshly. Some sort of compensation scheme for victims to be paid for by the bully's parents I think would be a great idea.

Bullying happens because NOTHING gets done about it. If schools continue to take the softly softly approach then it's no wonder victims either can't, won't or just don't see the point in complaining.

"Let them know that you will support their actions to defend themselves even if that action doesn't look like the moral highground"

Really? So if your child was the bully......?

I was a very quiet child and never got into trouble at school. But was forced to act completely out of character when a bully targeted me at the age of 9.
A girl from my class decided that she was 'going to get me' after school because my team beat her team during a PE lesson .
I did everything I could to avoid her and her three friends after school but ended up being cornered by them behind the school swimming pool. I remember being terrified. She ran at me and started to hit me. So I grabbed her and gave her the hardest thump in the face I could. I split her lip and she started to cry. She then promptly ran back into school to tell the teacher I'd hurt her!
She never bothered me again. If she had, she would have got another thump.
I agree with you OP.
In most cases , I would always encourage my children to simply ignore any bullies and walk away. But if my child was being hounded by a bully, ignoring wasn't working and the bullying became physical, I would tell them them that it is okay to hit back.
Most adults would defend themselves from physical attack, why shouldn't children?

Actually that has just reminded me - I have never had another physical fight in my life (apart from with my siblings). When I was a teenager 13-14 one of the boys I knew was a bit older than me and he fancied my friend who was a bit younger than me, smaller than me and she wasn't interested. He used to constantly pester her etc, when he got nowhere he started being being quite mean - bullying - and one day he did something that now I would consider mild sexual assault. She was upset. He thought he was so cool. (I don't think we would have ever told our parents though and different schools anyway.)

A day or so later I was with my friend and saw him with his friends and he made a comment and I saw red. I grabbed hold of him and forced him onto the ground, knelt on his chest and said 'Not so big and tough now are you - leave x alone'. The only reason I was strong enough was his surprise and the depth of my rage for the injustice etc. He spluttered something about telling his parents or something...actually sounded really pathetic...but he didn't and he did leave her (and me) alone after that - eventually we got back to being on nodding terms...
So maybe it does work to an extent...

126 I have. I don't think DD is being bullied as such, more that there are children in her class who are a lot bolshier than her. She's still very little so kids are often still quite rough at that age. She's generally very happy at school. The teacher was quite surprised when I told her

Glad you told the teacher.
Agree that at that age, kids are somewhat finding their way at school. Hope it sorts itself out including the hitting. That shouldnt be going on.

so what happens when its a girl bullying a boy?
can the boy hit the girl?
Or if its a small child bullying a bigger child?

Boney - Hard cases make bad law. Bullying is so complicated that it is hard to have absolute rules about things - hence it being wrong to absolutely forbid a biff back.

In the example I gave back, the boy who hit was bigger than his tormentor. The school knew all about the incident and studiously ignored it. I have always thought that was very appropriate of the school.

But as I've said before, I'm not sure if disallowing hitting back is actually the real issue here. Why does it work in many situations? Because bullies pick on the vulnerable. Their instinct is to exert their power over people who they know won't do anything about it. Hitting back sends a message that the victim will no longer tolerate his or her boundaries being transgressed, and as a result the bully will move onto easier targets or maybe just stop bullying altogether.

I expect there are other nonviolent ways of sending the same message, but I don't see schools promoting them. My daughters' schools, for example, tell victims to walk away, ignore, or tell a teacher. The first two of these three are actually instructions to give in to the bully. Why should a child ignore taunts or give up her piece of the playground? The third rests on the pretence that teachers are able to know precisely what is going on and solve it. None of these methods actually give victims the tools to stop the bullying themselves.