Do you teach your kids to fight?

[Oso]

i have a student that's been with me since he was 7...he's now 10...very small kid...he's the one i have on my youtube page doing some forms and some sparring.

he's compact, but very small for his age...his parents are both very small, mom is about 5' and dad is about 5'3" or so.

very good kinesthetic awareness, can replicate almost everything I show him the first time within like 80% accuracy.


but, he's a sweet kid...and a pacifist by nature as well as nurture due to his parents ideology...

and he get's picked on...by both boys and girls...

his mom came to me about it and wanted me to teach him how to fight back.

I made sure she realized that in schools, it doesn't matter who starts it...everyone involved generally gets punished the same.

she didn't care...she wanted him to fight back.

so, i talked to him some...he won't...doesn't want to...fight back...though he can do very well in sparring...he does better against the adults than against the 12 year old girl that's also in class...

people are, well, people...it's been interesting to watch him develop as a person over the last three years and hopefully he will stick with it for a while


and my hope is, to learn that it is ok to fight back sometimes.

but, if he doesn't...if he always wants to turn the other cheek...well, that's ok too...no my ideology but I can't fault him if it's his.

[BoulderDawg]

What I think is funny that everyone on this thread were either bullied themselves or their children have been bullied. Nobody's kid ever starts anything....they were always protecting themselves.

In at least half of these cases the kid has the parents wrapped around their little finger.

[Oso]

and you're just making yourself sound like an ass.

while there are certainly kids that start crap and then try to pass the blame, there are plenty of purely innocent kids that are getting picked on by the growing number of *******s getting their start at younger and younger ages.

[uki]

while there are certainly kids that start crap and then try to pass the blame,

true, these children usually are the ones that grow up to either be on the high school football and wrestling teams.

there are plenty of purely innocent kids that are getting picked on by the growing number of *******s getting their start at younger and younger ages.

i agree... my daughter is a hyper-active golden dragon, a bruising tomboy of a girl, jumps on all the boys in school, yet she has a soft spot when all the "popular" girls pick on her and tease her because of her name... i believe the mentality is instigated on children and teenager geared television shows, because if you notice, in each one there is always the picked on nerdy groups and the upscale snobby groups. i believe children are high influenced by the television, this is the reason so many kids act like a walking staurday morning cartoon. i was one of the ones picked on alright... a hearing aide, glasses, from a poor family growing up, red hair, asthma, and skinny... i had no chance.

[Oso]

true, these children usually are the ones that grow up to either be on the high school football and wrestling teams.

i'm afraid i have to take umbrage at that: i was on the wrestling team and in general, the only *******s were the guys that were also football players.
it became a great pleasure to me to watch whenever each season started and the few football players who had not wrestled tried out for wrestling...probably 3 out of 4 that tried the first practice never came back...big, yes...strong, yes...but, like i used to tell the girls in school: if you want a guy that can go longer than 10-15 seconds straight, date a wrestler.

[Baqualin]

and you're just making yourself sound like an ass.

while there are certainly kids that start crap and then try to pass the blame, there are plenty of purely innocent kids that are getting picked on by the growing number of *******s getting their start at younger and younger ages.

Thank you...saved me some typing.
BQ

[Baqualin]

My dad told me at a young age that if I got my a$$ whipped at school, I would get it whipped again when I got home.....I was a lot more scared of him than anyone at school.....so I lied

[TenTigers]

My stepdaughters were half Asian, and took alot of flak when they moved down here from Syracuse, and entered the new school. Hard enough being the new kids, harder still being ethnic, harder still being cute and getting the attention of the boys. Wasn't long before they were gettin picked on by the local cliques.

They stood up for themselves, and when they took care of business, we beat the school principle to the punch. We came storming in, and demanded to know why our girls were getting picked on, and why their school could do nothing about it. I also told them that if they couldn't protect our daughters, then they better protect their bullies, because I trained them to protect themselves, and I could give a rat's a** about their "zero tolerance policy," and I have a zero tolerance policy of my own. We then took our daughters out to IHOP and a movie.

We did this every time one of my girls had to defend themselves.
Later on, my eldest found a better way. She pulled "A Bronx Tale" on them. She brought these three girls into an empty classroom, and locked the door.
("Now youse can't leave..")
She said,"One at a time, or all at once-either way, none of you are walking out of here!" They begged and pleaded,and cried, and she let them go. Problem solved. No teachers, no suspension,
and she still gets to go to IHOP and a movie.

(my kids are much tougher than me)

[BoulderDawg]

I've worked with kids in the past. The bullies are usually the first ones saying "I was being picked on", "He started it" "Can't you take a joke"

And, from my experience, if the bullies parents get involved you usually get "Little Johnny is a good kid" "He was being picked on" "The teacher is playing favorites" or "What's the big deal" from at least half of them. These parents are also the worst when it comes to shouting, threats and name calling to the professionals there to handle the situation. Then from about half of what's left you get various comments which all adds up to "I don't care".

Most good counselors that I know usually size up parents within a couple of minutes after they meet. Very few even admit their kid is a bully and fewer than that agree to do something about it.

[TenTigers]

True in many cases. I've seen more than my share of bullies and spoiled parents.
I have also made **** sure that my girls were never the ones to start trouble. They have never started trouble, always showed compassion, and would befriend the kids who were singled out, and picked on, rather than trying to be in the "in crowd." They had a sense of fairness and justice. They felt for kids that were picked on, or singled out because they weren't pretty enough, or athletic enough, or whatever enough.

Maybe that comes from their past experience of being the ones who were bullied, or the fact that as older students in the Mo-Kwoon, they helped all the beginners-many who were from their own schools, who were picked on as well, so they learned that people are people, and no matter what social cliques they ran with, on the inside we are all the same. Perhaps that it was the experience they recieved tutoring other students in the after school programs.


My guess is they had me for a Dad...

[Violent Designs]

Man I used to get picked on in middle school.

A lot of repressed anger and hate.

Didn't know how to fight. Small, weak, etc. Racism abound as well.

Then I learned CLF and then I got addicted to fighting.

Now my friends say I am addicted to violence.

I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, LOL.

But if someone wants to start **** now, I put a chop choy to their solar plexus.

[Oso]

why you want to hit them with chinese food????

better to eat it and get strong!

then fight back!

[uki]

But if someone wants to start **** now, I put a chop choy to their solar plexus.

i'm the kinda guy that lets them strike first.

[TenTigers]

i'm the kinda guy that lets them strike first.

then with your other eye you can....?

[uki]

then with your other eye you can....?

who said anything about getting hit first?