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?

Yes but never throw the first punch

At 5? No, especially as a general rule with little to no issues.

A 5 year old doesn't have the greatest judgement, I'd be concerned they'd feel they have permission to whack someone if they bumped into them by accident etc.

Really? In your work of trauma resolution you tell children to hit other kids back? If systems aren't working to protect your child then the systems are crap and you move your child to somewhere where the systems are good. If a school can't keep your child safe then you leave and find a school that can - why would you have your child at a school where they are in constant fear of being hit and nobody cares?

Expecting children to sort out a situation where someone is trying to hurt them is what is unfair. They shouldn't have to reclaim anything - what if they don't want to lamp another child? What then?

Okie dokes!

I would say no, but, sometimes all the other strategies fail and you are left with nothing else. Also, if somebody is hitting you, and continues to hit you, you have the right to hit them back to defend yourself, everybody does and the law recognises that right.

My daughter was bullied by little sh*ts and kept telling the teacher and the teachers refusal to do nothing (regardless of how many times i went through the correct processes ending up with the head teacher) so one day she snaps and floors this girl after being pushed about for too long. The other girls gave her no grief afterwards and to be honest with my youngest now ive always said 'you dont start it but you finish it'... sometimes a little bit of violence goes a long way.

…Missing the whole point 🙄

Where do you live Cunctator, a desert island perhaps?

Telling a 5 year old to use physical aggression IS bad parenting!
A 5 year old cannot use logic to determine if she is defending herself or just getting the first punch in. If she learns to hit, she will soon learn that her actions will have consequences in school.

I personally don’t think you should respond to violence with violence. Then you take it throughout your life into adulthood. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Also once hitting is ‘ok’ to some level it gets difficult.
Defending yourself is getting out of a bad situation or protecting your own face/body.
Whether or not the adults are helpful, it’s not a child’s place to deal with this.

Don't be ridiculous. There are plenty of places in the UK where people know how to behave themselves and don't go round hitting one another. I've had three children at a total of six schools, and there was not one single instance of pupils having punch-ups. Bullying was dealt with very effectively by the staff in all cases. I don't socialise with the kinds of people who advise their children to punch back. Obviously these things go on, but not everyone has personally experienced them.

It’s all very well saying violence is wrong. Obviously it is. So is being the victim of repeated attacks and not getting any validation or support from teachers.

Nobody is condoning violence they are condoning self defence when normal methods of preventing violence fail. Sometimes a thump in the face will make the worst bully think twice.

It’s actually worse parenting to psychologically take away their only line of defence.

@Screamingabdabz
I think this is much more likely to be bollocks.

Of course hitting someone back isn't 'their only line of defence'. Not only isn't it, it's going to escalate it for them.

And solves nothing.

The rest of your post is even more idiotic.

In that case TheCunctator, you've had a very lucky and privileged life. Perhaps your children went to private school? Or maybe they WERE the bullies??

If she hits back hard, it might stop the bully hitting her in the future

It won't.

If you are a bully who is happy to hit, you'll hit more. And harder.

If you are a normally peaceable child, who only hits back in defence, you'll be hit harder & be hurt more.

You'll still get into trouble. The hitting wing stop.

You do have to tell a person in authority. It won't stop that incident but handled correctly, it stops in the future. If not, the parent acts as a parent & deals with it.

Yes but don't hit first.
Tell her that if she gets told off to explain that she hit them back and if the adult still doesn't understand then you will explain to them.
I agree that sometimes the adults don't do anything or are ineffective because they didn't witness things.

I don’t think it’s generally the right response, no. If there’s literally no other self defence option in the face of an unremitting bully then ok, but I don’t think general tit for tat violence (especially in the case of a small thump from a young child) is the right approach and often leads to it spiralling.

Examples in a couple of threads on here right now - one where a kid at school hit back after a bully kept going at him and had him up against something, fair enough, he was disciplined by the school wrongly IMO.

There’s another thread on here at the moment where a parent told their child to push a child back and it escalated massively to violence involving the parents.

Violence should be a last resort, not the standard response.

This is all also an excellent point.

Yes I have been lucky and privileged.

Yes my children went to private schools.

It's pathetic to suggest that telling children that violence is not acceptable means that they will be bullies. If my children had been bullying anyone, I would have known about it. One of my children was horribly bullied and it was sorted out extremely effectively without anyone needing to hit anyone else. The same child bullied several other children as well, and the multiple complaints from parents led to this child being asked to leave.

The thing is... if you're not happy at a private school, you can just take your money elsewhere, so there is every reason for the schools not to tolerate bullying. There would be absolute uproar among the parent body if children started punching one another up. No independent school wants either to lose the fees or to gain a reputation for not tackling bullying effectively.

Why do people type such nonsense?

So hitting a bully in the face is likely to make them 'think twice'? Really unlikely.

They will hit much harder.

The child retaliating will get in more trouble.

If there is a pattern of hurting / hitting, the parent keeps going until it's resolved. With the teacher, principal or - moves schools.

None of my DC have ever been in a school where repeated physical aggression was an issue. It's not the norm, you know.

No one specific is hitting her, but it happens and quite frequently with the kids from what Dd tells me.

And anyway, what does this mean?

If no-one specific is hitting her, does it mean lots of different kids are?

If that's the case, there's an issue with the school. The OP should be in, discussing it with the teacher.

Not telling her poor 5 yo to hit back.

I agree with @TheCunctator

There have been various issues over the years, all resolved fairly easily with a discussion with the school.

Never any ongoing issue of physical violence.

Always told my five-year-old never to hit first, always defend yourself

I disagree, growing up we were always told to never hit back, so I never did, I was too frightened to get into trouble. My sister was badly bullied so by the time I got into secondary school I told her next time it happened to hit back, she did, and shamed her bully because she got the better of her. She was never picked on again.

I'll always tell my kids to defend themselves if they need to. Sometimes the only way to deal with a bully is to hit them back harder. They know never to lift their hand first.

Even my Mum now tells her grandchildren to hit back if they need to because she realises leaving it to the school is useless.

I told mine to walk away and tell me or a teacher.

If you punch the wrong person you could end up dead.