One Dads Take On A Way To Deal With Bullying

I read a disturbing story recently about how another young teen had committed suicide. All because of bullying. They picked on for her foreign accent, how she dressed, they pushed her, and they teased her daily. Even at her funeral the bully’s made fun of her outfit. The outfit was chosen by her parents which was the dress she was to wear to prom.

I haven’t researched to see how real this story is. It doesn’t matter if it’s real. Bullying happens frequently enough to have websites dedicated to handling it. Secondly, true or not doesn’t matter for the article I’m writing, just the principle behind it matters.

Recently a friend asked me, as a dad, how would I deal with my kids being bullied? His girlfriend’s son, who is 10, is going through it. Her son was being bullied at school to a point the bully threatened to bring a gun to school and shoot her son. The school said nothing to the parents even after her son said something to the teacher who got the principle involved. I told him, I would have gone off on the school and that kids parents. This day in age you can’t just ignore those comments like when I was a kid. Nowadays you have to take those threats serious as it’s seemingly happening more and more where kids shoot up a school. According to Multiple websites like HealthyChildren.com and Parents.com state that 1.2-2million children (some site even have it up to 4 million now) have access to loaded, unlocked guns. Just recently, at a school in Southern California, there was another school shooting where kids sadly lost their lives.

“1.2 to up to 4 million children have access to loaded, unlocked guns.”

Whether its school shootings or suicide resulting from bullying It got me thinking, how, as a dad, will I deal with bullying?

To start let me tell you about where I was raised. I grew up in a small town in Maine where 3 towns all went to the same school. A school consisting of mostly redneck white kids. I was bullied, not any more than others but as much as any mouthy, skinny, uncoordinated, “C” student. 6th grade through sometime in high school was the hardest for me at the time. I got into my share of fights, which I mostly lost. I remember getting my ass handed to me, by one of the varsity baseball players when I was playing J.V., on the baseball field in front of the whole team. Another time, I almost got pushed into the drainage runoff that was next to the school with some brown crap looking water in it. One other time I had this kid run his mouth all class. After class he kept talking and being so fed up with it I pushed him down a flight of stairs where he ended up breaking his leg. I got in a wee bit of trouble that day.

So you can see that I know a bit about being picked on and bullying and the extremes you will go through to get it to stop.

As a senior, I did the same to a few kids in the grades behind me. At the time it seemed like a right of passage.

Now I’m sure the bullying might have had some adverse effects on me. I don’t know, luckily I mentally block most of those years out lol. But I don’t think it was all that bad.

Looking back I realize how I wanted to be in with the popular crowd. Now I realize those people don’t matter. I think not being in with that crowd made it easier to leave that small town and move to California where I now have great friends and endless opportunities.

So how are times different for my kids compared to when I was going through it? For starters, social media plays a big part in it with cyberbullying. Kids don’t get that home time to get away from the bullying. The bullying can now go on all day. Plus, bullies spread rumors on the internet or worse they post photos.

There was some anonymous site that got shut down a few years ago that people could upload photos of people that they got either by taking it themselves, was sent to them, or by stealing them. Can you imagine what that could to someone’s self-esteem and how violated they would feel?

My kids will possibly deal with a rougher group then I did, possibly even gangs. Though I hope to get them into schools where that won’t be in issue. Having two girls is different. Girls are mean on a different level. With boys it’s physical, With girls bullying consists of outcasting, spreading rumors, more mental warfare. I’d rather take a punch in the face than deal with those head games. 

So, is it the responsibility of the schools to make sure it doesn’t happen? The best they can ya. How much can they really do though? In all my years being alive teachers can’t stop you from getting picked on. They can’t be there every second. The moment they turn their back it starts right up again. On top of that, some of the stuff that bothers kids isn’t something the teacher even notices as a problem. 

Is it the responsibility of the bullies’ parents to discipline their children? Well yes, it would help. Parents teaching there kid respect and discipline is in need now more than ever. I see kids all the time acting a fool in stores and their parents are acting like that’s acceptable. Not my kids, I do my best to teach them the right way to act in public. Like how I was raised. Now, that’s not me saying my kids are perfect. Heck no, they get in some trouble in school for not listening, steamrolling through other kids (my son) but with both being under 5 we are not doing that bad. 

I believe we as parents need to teach our children that other people’s opinions are irrelevant. Who cares if you don’t like me. Your opinion of me is irrelevant to how I chose to live my life. Little punk Jonny’s opinion won’t mean shit when you get to college. He, like most of the kids you grew up with, will either grow up after or will be the same shit head he was in school, either way, it doesn’t matter. Once you leave school you’ll have trouble remembering his name. Oh and for little troubled Tina, well same goes for her. I remember most of the girls that looked down at those less fortunate than they most went nowhere and did nothing that really benefited society.

The mindset I want to instill upon my children is to not let others opinions dictate how you feel about yourself. If they believe in themselves without being delusional, treat others with respect, and realize that the only person whose opinion of them that matters is their own then they will have a more enjoyable life. 

Like I said before, I was bullied and it has good and bad consequences. It makes it so you can take crap later in life.

Do you think the military doesn’t bully you in basic training? At 17 years old I had multiple Drill Sargents screaming in my face, at the same time, just for wearing my hat wrong. I was smoked just for forgetting my belt. They break you down and build you to be a stronger version of you. Maybe that’s what schools need to do. Ya, the bullies are breaking you down but the instructors should be building you to be stronger. As parents we to need to put more of an effort into building strong, smart, young adults and stop with this sue-happy, poor me, oh my child is special, way of thinking. I want my kids to know how to hold themselves up and not let the outside world bring them down.

Now don’t get me wrong I am not saying that children should just be passive and not stand up for themselves. If they do that they will for sure get bullied physically. What I want is, let’s say Sally is bullying my daughter, I want her to realize that this kid doing all of this is just trying to make herself feel better for a few possibilities. 1. She is insecure and thinks by putting someone down it puts them beneath her. Projecting her own insecurities upon someone else somehow makes her feel better about herself. 2. She doesn’t like the feeling that someone might be better than her. 3. This is just the way her family is. When knowing why she’s is acting this way it takes a majority of the sting out of the insult.

Step 2 of teaching my kids to make bullying ineffective is the physical side. You can only get so far with ignoring words. At some point when they realize that words won’t hurt then they will get physical. That’s why I also want my kids to learn martial arts and the discipline that goes with it. That way if they are in an altercation they will be able to defend themselves. You can’t run to a teacher when a group of kids have you down and are kicking you. At some point the bully and usually their friends will get you where you can’t escape. That’s when you kid will need to fight back. I feel that is my responsibility to teach my kids to protect themselves. So what is the right thing to do? I don’t know. Is it train to ignore, train to fight, both, or just let them figure it out like I had to?

Some things that might help finding a solution depending on there age are:

Google Your Kids

See what people are saying so you know how to talk to your kids or even if you need to talk to them. Also look and see if they’re a bully. That is another thing we as parents need to be on the look out for. Making sure our own kids aren’t the ones bullying. I know I will get some feedback about how this is invasion of privacy, snooping on your kids, I’m not saying do it everyday just once in a while to make sure it’s not out of hand.

Whatever you do DO NOT defend your child online. Do not tell little miss Susan that calling your daughter ugly is not appropriate. Your daughter will get it 100 times worse as you can guess. I know defending you baby is your paternal instinct. It’s mine too. Just thinking about someone picking on my daughter makes me want to tell her how to handle it with venomous words that will make little Susie think twice about saying anything again. But that may only fix that one problem but if you can teach your daughter to care so much about her own positive opinion of herself that she can’t be bothered to know what others think of her it will carry her a lot further in life. 

You will notice in my writing I talk more about my daughter when talking about how to handle it. I’m sure my son will go through the problems too but I have a feeling boys get bullied with fists more then words. They both will learn to have a positive opinion about themselves but also know how to elbows from the clinch. I want my kids well rounded when it comes to dealing with bully’s.

Talking To The Other Kids Parents

Talking to the other kids parents could be really helpful, or it could be useless. I’m in the camp of letting kids handle it between themselves but if it’s necessary then do so. For instance, with kids being threatened with talks of shooting. I’m going to for sure ask his parents to see if he has access to a gun. That way I know if to call the police and have them involved. 

I will say this is all my opinion not that of my wife’s. I’m sure she has her ways of dealing with bullying and she will show the kids a good way of dealing with it. Let me just say I hate that I even have to think about how I will handle the possibility of my kids getting bullied. I hate that in this day in age it’s still a thing. Is it worse then ever or are kids too sensitive? Either way I hope someday our kids will put bullying to rest. Let me know what are your plans or how do you plan to handle bullying.