He needs to do it, not just for her, but for himself.
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She sits alone at lunch. She wears the “wrong” clothes. She often refrains from speaking up in class and elicits cruel snickers when she does. Yes, this is the “weird” girl in class, and I teach my son to stick up for her and everybody like her.
It’s so easy to forget the survival skills needed get through middle school and high school. Often times, it feels like no matter what, someone is getting mocked; it’s just a matter of whom. It’s far too easy to take the approach of, “Well at least it’s not me,” where you allow or even enable someone to make fun of someone else, knowing full well that you could bear the brunt of the embarrassment instead.
Defending someone getting teased – choosing to associate with someone with this level of social capital – is dangerous at this age. It could result in the teasing (or worse) getting lobbed in your direction.
And that’s exactly why I teach my son to do it – defend the weird kid. By putting himself on the line for someone else, he can improve that person’s life. Simply speaking up in the defense of another person is often enough to stop the teasing. Could it sometimes lead to him getting teased as a result? Possibly, but it teaches him to handle himself and helps him realize that it doesn’t matter what other people think of you. You can’t go through life worried about what people will say about you, and you certainly can’t let that it be a reason to not to the right thing.
The long-term effects these kids being bullied face are troubling.
Think about it. Imagine a world where no one ever helped out anyone else that was being oppressed. The single mother that gets dropped illegally by her insurance company. The same-sex couple that just wants to get married. The Muslim woman who gets treated differently wherever she goes because of the hijab she wears on her head.
You see, bullies don’t just disappear when you leave grade school; their bullying just becomes more integrated into daily society. When you’re a child, bullying is as obvious as it gets. When you’re an adult, it can become institutionalized and much harder to fight. If you’re not willing to stand up as a kid, you’ll be even less likely to do it as an adult.
That’s why it’s so important to teach your child early on not to turn a blind eye to this sort of behavior. By developing a positive pattern now, he can not only help improve other people’s lives, but he can develop a self-worth that is derived from what he thinks of himself, not what other people think of him.
Photo: Flickr/chloe delong
If kids were allowed to kick butt on bullying adults, the many adults would think twice about thinking that they can do anything to kids just because they are parents, are in positions of authority, and/or because they are adults.
“When you’re an adult, it can become institutionalized and much harder to fight. If you’re not willing to stand up as a kid, you’ll be even less likely to do it as an adult.”
The trouble is that if you tried to stop bullying in the adult world, a lot of time you will not get any help because the bullies themselves are occupying the management/authority positions and if you go over their heads, the bullies’ superiors can not or will not do anything about it for various reasons.
We need to also stop bullying by adults particularly at work. If more bullying adults had their butts kick at work particularly the bosses, you would have no problems of bullying adults passing their own bullying to their kids since then the kids would learn what happen if they took their bullying into the adult world.
I saw a YouTube yesterday that brought this home. If you can believe, a bully was punching a blind boy, who had no idea where it was coming from. One of his classmates roundhoused the bully and laid him out flat, bit of blood from his forehead. Then the Knight grabbed the bully by the shirt and dragged his sorry butt off the ground with his face inches from the kid. I’ll bet he Never does that again.
“Could it sometimes lead to him getting teased as a result? Possibly, but it teaches him to handle himself”… Why did you make your story about a boy standing up for a girl? Do you not care about boys being bullied, and don’t want girls to put themselves in harm’s ways? For the record, I was bullied in elementary school, until the day I punched one of the tough guys in the nose. “She sits alone at lunch.” “The single mother that gets dropped illegally by her insurance company.” “The Muslim woman who gets treated differently wherever she goes because… Read more »
Would you stand up for that girl, Tyler? i would, but I’ve recently been informed that I’ve gone from being a misogynist to a racist, so I have that going for me. In other news, the individual he was asked to defend happened to be a misfit type of girl (meaning that she did not fit in with kid culture), so naturally I’d expect him not to go stick up for a boy, but that particular girl. i do understand where you are coming from, but that is one of the things that GMP is working to bring into our… Read more »
Bravo. Thanks for the piece about an important subject.
This is one of those articles I’m going to print and save until my 8 year old is a little older and I will make him read it and live by it.
Way to go, man.
Amen Tyler. If more parents taught their kids to stick up for someone who is being bullied, there would be a lot less bullying. You are teaching your son priceless life skills.