Bullies

Man, this one is everywhere you look. Kids are hateful. They are unrelenting. Students are in a unique situation that we, as fathers of a different generation, didn’t have to worry about. If we were being bullied, we could handle it and didn’t have to worry about getting arrested, we would get suspended of course, but it wasn’t an automatic ride to jail. Our students are told that if they get in a fight, for whatever reason, even if you are defending yourself or someone else, you get a nice shiny set of bracelets and Mom and Dad have to come get you from the local jail. That sounds great to some parents, but here is where this is a huge problem. If you are raising your kids right, then they don’t want to go to jail. If they defend themselves against a bully, they go to jail. You see what I’m getting at? Instead, they are ridiculed and bullied every day, and just silently take it. “I was bullied, and it didn’t hurt me any.” BULL. Tell me you don’t remember that feeling. The feeling of inadequacy, the feeling that you were alone in the world, even for a minute. Our teachers have classrooms of 20-30 students now. It’s hard enough keeping track of 2 or 3, so they don’t see everything. Bullying statistics are shocking. In my hometown we had 15 teen and preteen suicides in 2 years, directly related to bullying. More rules aren’t going to stop the kids that are bullies. I have a different approach.

Instead of victimizing our students, let’s give them tools to handle a situation themselves. We have a local organization that teaches self-defense to students, and they will not turn a child away due to financial problems, they are not in it to be rich, they want to help people. Now slow down before you get ahead of me, they don’t teach any ATTACK moves, it is all defense, they teach how to get away from an attacker first, and if not possible, how to hold down an attacker until someone can help, or how to temporarily disable an attacker so they can escape. Here’s the catch, I haven’t had one of those students use any of the combat skills they learned. Instead, they developed confidence, social skills, and of course, they know how to defend themselves. It isn’t about fighting. It’s about how you hold yourself. For example, are you going to go fight the guy that looks like he can handle himself? No, you wanna fight the guy that looks like they won’t fight back. The way you hold yourself can stop bullying before it ever happens. Walk proud and confident, and people respect you a little more. This works for you as well dad. Try it at work, don’t be an asshole, but be confident, even if it’s fake confidence, before long, you won’t even realize you are full of it. If you think your child is being bullied, outright ask, but don’t be surprised if you don’t get anything out of them. Instead, look into a self-defense class. I’ve watched students’ grades improve dramatically, I’ve seen nerds ask their crush out, I’ve seen them look forward to school instead of dreading it. This will always help out later in life too. Try a different approach with parenting these days, what worked yesterday may not work today!

By: Dad Hack