Do you teach your child to hit back?

[SweetBobby]

If yes, why?
If no, why?

I do and I feel pretty strongly about it. Being able to stand up for yourself in life is absolutely vital.

YABU- No I don't
YANBU- Yes I do

Good luck with reporting little Johnny to the police.

You really do live in la la land.

Of course you can teach kids that hitting is wrong as well as if you have to and they haven't suddenly socialised to become violent!

What an overly simplist and one dimensional view of the world.

I'm glad I credit my child with being able to cope with a sophisticated understanding of life rather than little more than caveman.

Yes because if someone hit me I would most certainly hit them back so I won’t take that right away from my child. If they were hit in school and they retaliated they wouldn’t be in any trouble from me, regardless of what school said.

Hit back, not first though.

No, I taught her to ask them to stop, or try and get away from them. Worst case scenario, roll up into a ball and put your hands over your head. Oh, and make a lot of noise to attract attention.

I encounter workplace violence on an infrequent basis (public transport) so I know the consequences of escalating a physical argument.

Yes I always have done.

YANBU - but I warned them that it was a last case scenario and if they hit first they would get punished by me as well as the school.

But bullies can be smart, and teachers either don't always see what's going on, have to tip toe around 'rules' or don't give a fuck.

I warned one teacher that if the other child's behaviour continued (low level bullying but still hurting DS) then my DS was likely to hit him back and he said "fair enough" because he was limited in what he could do against the behaviour.

I also told my DSs that I would want them to talk to me about any situation so that if it was a 'build up' situation we could try to work out a way of diffusing the situation.

Oh get over yourself

Bullying is everywhere from state schools to the poshest most expensive private schools

You must live in a bizarre bubble

We've practiced the 1-2-3's since nursery:

1. If another child is bullying you, tell them to stop.
2. If that child doesn't stop, get an adult to intervene.
3. If the adult doesn't intervene and the child does it again, then game on!

Both my children have gotten into scraps, but so long as they follow the 1-2-3's, they haven't gotten into too much trouble after candid discussions with SLT. If an adult doesn't intervene, it becomes a safeguarding issue for my children. One child got detention once, but the bully got it much worse (after my child floored the bully after the bully pulled the first punch).

Definitely not, the likelihood is that if they hit back the fight will get bigger and they will end up getting more hurt. We don't use our hands to solve our problems. I teach my child to walk away and tell an adult.
If they grow up thinking it's alright to hit back they'll probably end up getting arrested at some point in life.

I don't teach them to strike back - I leave that to my boys' martial arts instructors, who teach skills such as de-escalation to avoid the fight, self-defence and ground defence alongside how to strike effectively and use of various weapons. They do a decent amount of sparring which I hope will help my boys to maintain cooler heads and make good decisions if/when a fight is for real.

Wow so many responses, will catch up over my coffee.
I'm sorry to see that so many of your children have been victim to hitting. I quite like the 123 rule a few people have mentioned as it does make sure they try other options first.

This is exactly how I feel. So many instances where the bulky is never stopped by the school, bulky rewarded constantly, victim punished etc.

Yes I do.
In fact, a girl hit my Dd only last week. Dd hit her back and said "don't ever do that to me again" and the girl went off. Hopefully that's put an end to any nonsense.

My ds' have always been taught to hit back too and it's given them the confidence to intervene when they've seen bullying going on.

I'm actually surprised how many people are YANBU on this topic. And at how many have actively taken their children to learn self defense, that's something I might look into. Today's world is a scary one and it's better to be over prepared in life.

I just worry that telling Tristan to hit back is fine, presuming he's strong enough. If he's ineffectual, it gives bully a 'reason' to beat the shit out of him..
Taking to self-defense classes is good for confidence but ineffective practically unless very well practised, which takes time. years
I knew a kid who started karate, tried brazening it out with a bully, and ended up in A&E because he thought telling them would make them leave him alone..🤔

Viewers in Scotland get
-are you sure they hit you?
-you really need to move when you think they're going to hit you.
'Why aren't you moving out of their way? You know you're going to be hit...sigh'
School only acknowledged there was an issue when bully walked up to a child in the class, pushed them off their chair and started hitting them for no reason, although they still tried the 'all behaviour is communication' schtick.. 'they MUST have done something to upset him' ...

I taught both my daughters a thumb hold that causes severe pain and can even break the bone.
Only my youngest ever broke her assailants thumb.

I'm surprised by all the posters who seem to see hitting back and defending = a continued assault on the bully!
Every poster who advocates hit back is saying the same, a good punch/kick to get them off you, not a barrage of violence!

Same as our household although as they get older I'd be inclined to cut out step 2.

Mine are older now but I didn’t advocate hitting back and followed the rules of speaking with teachers and heads etc. what we experience was 4 years of relentless bullying until mine finally snapped and gave his bully a good thrashing. It was an awful time (suspension, lots of stress etc.) but for the last year of school that bully kept his distance and not one peep out of him. I genuinely wish I’d encouraged mine to give him a good hiding sooner I really do.

I hate the 'hit back' mentality. This is not always defending yourself and it does not always stop the other person from continuing to hurt them, it won't fix the issue long term, it can make your reaction just as bad as theirs and get you into trouble too, especially if they could have done something else to keep themself safe.

Just hit back is too much of a simplistic approach to situations which can have so many different variables, also the 'well they hit me first' may wash in primary school but as we grow up it doesn't.

I would deal with it as and when it happened with my kids, to help them read situations accordingly and decide their actions the the best they can. I still talk to them now about it at 15 and 17 yrs old and stress that self-defence is complex and getting it wrong can change an assault against you to an assault against you, you assaulting them or both of you being involved in an affray together. Also, I get them to think about how they could justify staying in the situation hitting them back when they could have fled and resolved it later when out of harm's way as having to hit to get out of a situation won't always present itself, again there are too many variables.

I have seen people hit back correctly and it was self-defence and others that have got it wrong and ended up on assault charges - like I say it's too simplistic in its approach.

Yes I am quite confused about that too. Reinforced by the amount of posts from people saying they hit the bully back and never got bullied again!

“Person hits me, I hit person” I'm very confused how I’m the caveman….
Anyway, I would report any child of secondary school age to the police if their parents and teachers weren’t prepared to curb violent behavior. If a child was carrying a knife, I would call the police, if they were vandalising, I would call the police, if they were displaying worrying sign of extremism, guess what I’d do.

No, I don’t. I’m not risking my child’s life in this way.

My son is still very young, but the lessons I teach him now will last in adulthood. Young men are at genuine risk of harm from violence by other young men. I won’t teach my son that the way to protect himself or to get out of a bad situation is by fighting. It significantly increases the chances that he could be hurt or killed (or, since he’s massive, that he accidentally kills someone with a punch and ends up in prison).

I also don’t want to raise him in a way which contributes to a culture of using violence to solve problems.

I teach him different ways to resolve a situation where someone hits. I would significantly rather he knew about conflict de-escalation, seeking appropriate help and avoiding danger than roll the dice on him hitting back and coming out of it significantly worse off.

Good for you. Come back when you’ve got a young teen who has been beaten up for 4 years with zero action by the school and there really is no other option than to defend himself.

I did encourage one of my kids to hit back. Another kid had been regularly attacking him, pulling and damaging his clothes, kicking him, chasing him and pushing him over. He was terrified to retaliate as the child in question was a girl.
As it turns out, the school got on it pretty quickly and it stopped.

My eldest found a great way to stop bullying. A kid in his yr 7 class kept trying to hit and push him over. My son just laughed at him. Totally knocked the wind out of his sails. Every other kid he tried it on with ended up responding the same way and the bully ended up switching schools because "everyone was mean to me".

Yeah, they were mean because you couldn't physically bully everyone.