Is it ok to tell her to hit them back?

[Comeonthenproperautumn]

Is it ok to tell my 5 year old Dd that if someone hits her, to hit them back?
Ive been saying this to my Dd, but part of me feels strange saying it.
I can’t protect my child when I’m not there and can’t 100% trust other adults are fully protecting her, is it ok to start building this resilience in her?

I was bullied at school, told to ignore them or tell the teacher, who also said to ignore them. Bit difficult to ignore someone literally swinging on your hair but whatever. Not to mention getting a reputation as a “cry baby” and a “grass” for telling the teacher. Git bullied daily for four years until I finally snapped and hit one of them. No one ever touched me again.

Told my own DD to never hit first, but make damn sure you hit last. She was never bullied, and is now nearly forty, and amazingly, not remotely violent.

Growing up I was told to hit back. I was never bullied. I told my children to tell a teacher rather than hit back but the bullying continued for my child because the teacher refused to deal with it. Sometimes a bully will only stop when they get a slap back. If they know you will keep tolerating it they will keep doing it.

@finallyme2018 I’m a teacher too.

I can see two sides to this. Yes, defend yourself and sometimes the only way to stop a bully is to hit back. However, sometimes in the case of someone being bigger, armed with a weapon, stronger or in a case where you are outnumbered you will end up being beaten up, injured, grievous bodily harm, traumatised or killed.

So, learning how to assess risk needs to be part of it. And consequently learning how to respond in the safest way possible. Fight or flight. Sometimes fight is the best option. Sometimes flight is the best option. Sometimes using our words or negotiating is the best option. Sometimes finding a safe person to intervene is the safest option.

So you are basically saying that a child who hits someone hasn't been parented well, and your solution to that is to be a shit parent and tell your child to hit someone.

Makes perfect sense, really.

a) that's not what resilience means

b) what if she hits back but loses the subsequent fight? Wouldn't that make her position considerably worse?

I have told my DD that if she feels it is necessary to use physical force against an aggressor, then she will have my full support. I won’t have her growing up thinking she must remain passive while subject to attack. Sadly, we know our daughters will likely be attacked at some point. I don’t want her to freeze if or when she finds herself if this situation, simply because she’s had it drummed into her that she must never hit.

I also noticed the false equivalence between violence and resilience.

Resilience is something very different indeed.

I suspect some of the people on here who tell their child to hit the bully harder live in the kinds of homes or have had the kinds of upbringings where abuse is not uncommon.

People who advocate hitting back also say it's part of the "real world". I've been in the real world for over 50 years and I don't know anyone who has ever hit anyone.

I always told mine that if someone hits you, but them back as hard as you can. Neither of them has grown up to think "violence is the answer". Rather they've grown up to know that no one has the right to hit them without risking getting a slap back. And I'm absolutely fine with that.

I don't think it's ever right to tell a child to hit back. If someone hurts them, they should know to speak to an adult, not to retaliate.

Sadly agree, found the school offered weak, non committal excuses that always focused on 'we can't tell you about other child' even when we would say we weren't asking about other child, but wanted to know what was being done to protect our child from this happening again. Seems that dc has to keep out of their way, and if that this means the other child approaching them, then our dc was to leave the area even if this meant them having to stop a game/activity/food.

Most likely way our daughters will be attacked is In a domestic violence situation. Hitting back is the quickest way to escalate the violence and unlikely to be terribly effective. Worse case scenario it might get her killed.

Freezing is often an instinctive self preservation mechanism.

Best way to avoid violence is to avoid those who are violent entirely.

Hitting back isn't self-defence, though? Self-defence would be using force to get away from the person hurting you, not launching a retaliatory attack.

Two wrongs don't make a right, and all that.

That's fine. You are not my kind of person OP. Fighting is trashy and unnecessary, parents who endorse these behaviours are not parents I want to be like or have any respect for. (likewise, their fighting kids)

Happens once, tell the teacher, happens again hit back. That way she is covered by having previous incident reported.

I think the people who start fisticuffs on Jeremy Kyle were probably advised by their dense parents to hit back.

What do those who are having the horrors with regards to hitting back suggest work?
Or is it that its your dc who are striking first and you don't want them hit back?

I tell them they're allowed to hit back in self defence.

When I was at school it was all 'turn the other cheek', 'sticks and stones', and worst of all: 'if he pushes you over/ pulls your hair/ hits you, it just means he likes you'.

Fuck that.

Three years ago when my son was in reception, the class bully punched him in the stomach at a birthday party. Without missing a beat, my son punched him right back in the face. The mum wasn't happy but I didn't care. Since the the bully has been in trouble for picking on other boys - even holding them up against the wall by their neck. But my son has had absolutely no bother from anyone and has never been violent again.

Same @Comeonthenproperautumn same

ideally I’d say don’t hit back as if they hitter stumbles and hits the back of their head or something awful happens on the other hand some children only learn by having the same done to them.

sometimes telling an adult gets you labelled a wimp or a grass or a snitch.

kick up a stink at the school about this, call safe guarding and the governors. Don’t put your little Dd in a position where she could hurt another child and herself. Bullies are also children and breakable as well. Sometimes fighting fire with fire doesn’t work

Not sure why you quoted me, then referenced the OP... Anyhow, My dc are in their 20s now. Neither of them have ever hit anyone. I've never hit anyone either, let alone had a fight😅
For what it's worth I don't think you're my sort of person either. Bit too judgemental.

Indeed, I wouldn’t advise her to hit back in a domestic violence related situation. We occasionally have an in depth discussion about what she should do if she ever finds herself in an abusive relationship, and how she could escape with her life. I wasn’t referring to domestic violence in my earlier post.

I got into my work (trauma resolution) through looking at how bullying causes PTSD.

My view is that if the systems aren't working to protect a child you need to make sure they have agency to protect themselves. Disempowering them and expecting them to be the pinch point between someone trying to hurt them and a malfunctioning system is unfair.

The psychology of bullying is about power. A child needs to be able to reclaim their power.

Nice try. I just don't inhabit a world where people go around hitting one another, and neither do my children.

If kids are hitting each other frequently at this school then I don't think telling her to hit back is the answer at all, is she going to hit back at all these different kids? Honestly adults need to be dealing with this, not kids being expected to know what constitutes acceptable violence and then expected to stay within those boundaries.

If your child is being hit a lot then you need to be talking to the teacher about how they are going to keep your child safe and if they are disinterested take it to the head, if they're not interested go to the governors. If you still have no joy then this is obviously a pretty crappy school and I think you need to be looking at other schools where this isn't happening or where it is dealt with swiftly if it does happen. ,

Neither you or OP are my kind of person. I will never encourage violence ( used or not)