Ok what do you teach your children if another child was to hit them?

[SpookyDooooo]

Was talkling to a friend yesterday about this, we had different views so wanted to know what peoples opinions were, would you -

A) Teach them if someone hits you hit them back?

Or

B) Don't hit them back tell someone?

When answering please put the ages of your children.

If you tell them "B" do you think they will be bullied for telling?

I agree my dd 4 knows to say "don't hit/smack me" fortunately the issue hasn't actually happened yet. my heart says when she gets older to tell her to hit them back but my head says this is a bad message to teach her.

That you say to the child 'I don't like what you just did to me so I'm going to play with someone else' and then to walk away.

This gives them the power back and also the control to change the situation. I am hoping this will help alter in life.

He's 3.6.

DD aged 3.10

I tell her to tell the person not to hit/push etc.

Then if they do it again, to shout it at them,

Then if she do it to go and tel someone.

Now I will go and read the rest of the posts to see what I should be doing as never quite sure I am right about this.

ds is 4 and has been a victim of bullying which his then nursery was unable to stop. After months of telling him to scream "stop, I don't like it" at them and then to tell someone, we felt that nothing was changing and we risked our very confident son becoming less confident. This was in his last 6 months of nursery and we did not want to unsettle him by moving him so close to starting school (in case anyone asks why wo did not do this).

We then had a long conversation and explained that if it was not the first time someone had hit him and they were not smaller than him, he should do whatever he could to make them stop and that included hitting them back.

My son is a very big boy so we were reluctant to go down this route, but I suspect his size may make im a target for bullies (mine certainly did). He was bullied again and hit them both. They never hit him again. We were however asked to account for his actions as he justified them my saying "mummy and daddy told me it was alright". Nursery did not think it was alright in any circumstances which I can understand but I did not understand why they did not have the parents of the bullying children in there telling them the same thing.

I am not sure that you can view childhood bullying from an adult perspective and apply adult morality to it. Children have not learned all of the behavioural restraints that adults have and whilst I agree that it is out role to teach them this and not to be agressive, I am not prepared to allow my son to be hurt whilst the learning process is taking place.

here here goosey

Mine are 7,6 and 4 and the rule is tell an adult and always tell me so that if this doesn't work we can devise a plan.

DS's Judo Sensei teaches them that the only time it is acceptable to use judo outside of class is when a bully who is bigger than you is trying to hurt you. (DS is almost 5 and in Y1 BTW)

School seem OK with this (judo lessons are at school) so we have gone with the same rules. Actually DS's class seem to have evolved a good system for themselves - it is never the child being hit who goes to tell the teacher - one of the others will always go and tell on their behalf.

Message withdrawn

my ds aged 4 has always been told to tell an adult rather than hitting back. This he has followed until recently when he took the law into his own hands and dished out a thump to a boy who he said was always hurting him. I feel very mixed about this.
Unfortunately my son got into trouble as he was seen hitting.

To respond to Goosey - Bullying aged 4 should not be tolerated in a nursery. This is appauling and I would remove him at once. 4 year olds should not have to learn such hard lessons so young.

Agree Pitchounette.

One of the things it brought home to me is that we had hammered it into ds that it was not OK to hit other children and he should seek help and when we asked the nursery what his reaction to being hit was they said he just let them do it, asked them to stop and looked bewildered.

I felt terrible that I had not properly equipped my son to deal with the situation and our well meaning teachings probably let it continue for much longer than it should.

Bradpitt - we thought about removing him from the nursery and told him that we would do it in a second if that is what would make him happy and he need never go back. He begged not to be taken away from his friends. We thought we would be giving him the wrong message if we took him away and that he might construe it as having been his fault in some way. We therefore tried to equip him to sort it out himself.

Difficult one this, i have never taught my ds(8) to hit back even though he has been hit many times by other children, since playgroup when ds was 3 a little boy picked on him and lamped him on several occasions. ds came home with a bruised eye, bitten on the back and scratches on his face, it broke my heart and at one point i had to keep him off for a week as the playgroup staff could not reassure me that my ds would be safe from getting smacked by this little boy, all that ever happend was i had to sign a form whenever i picked him up to say there was an incident where another child had hit him. of course i knew who the little boy was as ds would reguarly tell me at home.

I prayed that when the kids moved on to nursey that this little boy wouldn't be in his class but he was and he was also and still is in his primary class but no major incidents have happened until this year.

they are in primary 4 now and when the kids went back after the holidays the said little boy began to pick on ds taking his football etc. as my ds is quiet and shy he wouldn't tell the teacher, i encouraged ds while talking to him at home to walk away from the boy in the playground if he approached him etc But it escalated as the boy would try to stop ds playing football and would run at him and pull his trousers down so everyone would laugh, ds would laugh too(ds has a wicked sense of humour) until certain points when he had enough and would stop playing football to get away from him. One day the boy rugby tackled my ds to the ground on the football field at school and my ds smashed his face against a tree cutting his eye and hitting his jaw, ds stood up and kicked the boy in the face knocking the boys two bottom teeth out, i was called to take ds to hospital where he got paper stitches, on his return to school next day my ds got a written warning for attacking a pupil and the said bully got nothing, my ds had never hit anyone in his life but merely standing up for himself. i was absolutely shocked that ds lifted his foot off the ground to kick the boy but obviously my ds has taken enough of this boy hitting out at him and other kids, i now have said to ds that if anyone trys to hit him he has to protect himself my putting his arms up and push them away, then walk away and tell a teacher.

I tell them to ask the other child to stop and if that does not work then go tell an adult.

I don't see why they should get bullied for this.

B) To walk away and tell someone.

I was amazed to discover recently that both dh and mil think that you should always hit back. I think violence is the wrong message to give children.

My normally very mild mannered brother hit someone back at a party when he was 18, unfortunately (or fortunately) his punch was harder and he knocked down a fence and was prosecuted for criminal damage. Having a criminal record totally wrecked his confidence and stopped him applying for promotions because he did not want to have disclose his record.

wow mawma, that is just shocking, your little ds

thatw as meant to be your poor little ds

I don't know - I think the saying "don't hit me" loudly is good - as it brings people's attention to what is going on and is verbally a bit threatening without swinging a punch.
I was bullied at school (aged 11) by two girls who physically hurt me. I had been told to ignore it, so I pretended it wasnt happening. After several weeks I quietly lost my temper and pinched one in the calf (she was kicking me in the back at the time). They stopped, completely, in light of their own physical pain becoming a reality.

I have told DS to say very firmly 'don't hit me' and mean it.

Assertiveness is a far more valuable survival skill than retaliation or 'telling'.

Thinking about it, in DS's class, the boys (sorry - can't comment on the girls as DS only plays with two) are divided into groups of friends - those that are constantly hitting each other and hitting back, and those that never hit each other or even enjoy playfighting much. DS is in the second group. OUt of his group of 5 schoolfriends i have never once had to intervene in any level of fisticuffs between any of them, and often have them all here.

I think hitting back may be part of a sort of perpetual motion - once you have been seen to be a hit=back type you are fair game to be hit again and so on.

I am having a real nightmare with this at the moment..ds is 8, small for his age, keeps getting hit by this horrible git child who is much bigger than him. I tell him to tell the teacher. Byut my DS has a temper, and often the other kid will hit him,. my ds will hit him back, then git kid will hit DS really hard, leave him crying, and DS won't tell the teacher incase he gets into trouble for retaliating. I have now decreeed that under no circumstances is he to retalitae, he must always run away and find the nearest teacher and tell on gitkid. I just doin't know what else to do.

My ds1 is 4.5 and I've taught him to say very firmly 'don't hit/push me, I don't like it' and walk away. If they continue then go and tell someone.
When he was younger I told him to tell someone immediately, now he's older, I tell him to give the other person the chance to stop. I think it's quite OK for him to then tell someone without being seen as a snitch.
I think that in a few years I'll moderate it further and try to miss out the 'telling someone' phase.
I don't however believe he should be encouraged to hit back at this age - apart from anything else, I worry that in the playground he will be caught as the one hitting, when in reality he;s only retaliating!!
I do know of parents with boys his age though who encourage theirs to hit back and it does worry me.