Advice to my Daughter on Bullying
A few weeks ago Goosey came home and told us that she’d been having problems with a boy at school. Over the past few months he had been kicking her, but in the lunch line that day he started punching her in the arm, rather hard.
We questioned a little further, and she said that she asked him nicely to stop, but he continued. At that point she reported it to a teacher and consequently he had to spend half of his recess on the wall. Once he had completed his time out he sent two of his friends to drag her to him, where he kicked her again.
I was furious.
Goosey, in her kind way, defended the boy. He has had a really hard situation at home this year. She told us that she noticed that he had been getting into more trouble at school and had been bullying since a certain event took place in his home. She said that because of all of that she understood why he was acting that way and had just been saying things like, “Ouch. You hurt me.” Now, I appreciate Goosey’s compassion in this situation, but what I don’t appreciate is my daughter feeling like she must let someone hurt her.
We told her that no matter what was going on in his home he should never be hitting or kicking her, and he should never send people to drag her to somewhere she doesn’t want to go. We made her practice, with a firm, no-nonsense voice, saying, “STOP IT! DON’T HIT ME!” By the time she said it to our satisfaction she was in tears.
And then I said the thing that I never thought I would say.
“If you tell him to stop it like that and he does it again, you hit him as hard as you can. You don’t have to put up with this. HIT HIM!”
We don’t embrace violence in our home, but I will not allow my daughter to be abused.
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Tags: abuse, Boston, bullying, girls, parenting, school, school-kids
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The thing that worries me the most about this is that she will think that it’s okay for a boy to hurt her if he’s dealing with something. I want her to learn now that a boy/man should NEVER do that to her, and if he does she doesn’t have to take it.
We’ve struggled with this as well. I want my children to be kind and compassionate, but after some incidents came to the forefront last year, I also want them to hit back. There’s a line between having compassion for someone and then learning to defend yourself. I don’t have any answers…