Should You Teach Your Kids to Fight a Bully?

When my now 11-year-old daughter was about eight, she came in the house crying hysterically after a group of girls outside ganged up to taunt her. My first instinct was to hold her and tell her everything would be okay.

All right, my first instinct was to head outside and deal with those girls myself—but even so, I did neither. I told her to go back outside, stand up for herself by telling those girls a thing or two, and to never again give in to a bully by running away crying.

I thought of that day first when I heard about the viral video that landed a Lansdowne mom in hot water after she was caught on tape encouraging her young son to fight another boy. In the video, you can hear mom Kelly White screaming for her son to get up and fight, even as he pleas for her to help him after the other boy throws him to the ground. (Follow the link to view the video).

White says her son was being bullied by the other boy, and that while she knew her actions could get her in trouble, she encouraged him to fight to teach him how to stand up against the bully. Now she faces charges ranging from second-degree child abuse to second-degree assault and could face up to 33 years behind bars.

While it has been easy for many to condemn White for her actions, I have had a hard time doing the same when looking at my own. I don’t condone violence, and I think encouraging a child to physically fight is a little different than encouraging your child to have some snappy comebacks against a few taunts.

Yet the approach to dealing with the bully, to fight fire with fire, in both situations is the same.

As much as we teach kids about bullying, it doesn’t erase the fact that bullies pick on a kid they know won’t fight back. I know there are many different books and articles on bullying and how to deal with it, but I do believe that there are instances in which the best way to deal with a bully is to teach your child how to fight back.

What do you think?