How do I teach my preschooler to fight back?
Magnum posted on Thu, 12/29/2011 - 22:34
My son is going to be 4 soon and till now I have always been teaching him to be nice everyone, never hit or speak wrong things. Now that he is playing around with elder kids they are bullying him. Everyday he comes crying with a complain about how elders are troubling him and hitting him.
Now I feel that my child is lagging and he should be knowing how to defend himself at least when people trouble him even if he has to hit. Now am really concerned about how to teach him this aspect where on the other hand I am asking him to be good.
Instead of saying that go and hit someone you should tell your child that he should protect himself and if someone is hurting me he should be strong enough to defend himself. You should emphasize and old enough to that he is strong and old enough to take care of himself and should not cry.
Kids these days best understand the words OLD and STRONG.
I am of the view that if anyone has to survive in todays world he/she has to be independent. This is why I have made my son so from the very childhood. I have always taught him not to cry but try and get what he wants or never accept any wrong thing from anyone at all. Maybe I am being very bold but this is what I feel.
You need to let your child go and face the world rather than being so protective.
I would recommend you to not ask your son to go ahead and fight with people. You can ask him to ignore such kids who trouble him. My idea is that at this age kids should be exposed to good things in life rather than how to be harsh and bad. They will slowly learn the tricks of today's world as they face it why should we as parent teach them something wrong.
I am telling this from my experience. I have never taught my kids to be bad but now as they are growing up they know how to deal with people who trouble them.
I feel these things need not be said verbally. A child can learn thing seeing you. If you give up easily to people who trouble you or harm you then definitely your child will develop similar attitude. So, you got to show him in real life how you face such problem and the child will slowly grasp it.
I am telling this from my experience. I have never taught my kids to be bad but now as they are growing up they know how to deal with people who trouble them.
I feel somehow we do need to communicate the message of self defense. Many a times due to our teachings of all morals by the time kids grow up he/she develops a mind set such that he/she is not able to handle adverse situations and would always look onto parents for help.
My nephew was always taught to be good and whenever he hit people without knowing the reason his parents would scold him. Now at the age of 9 he simply not able to defend himself in any adverse situation. Now his parents are trying to undo what they taught. And I can tell you its difficult.
very well said kareenakaps.
let him be a person on his own. let him defend for himself. but that will happen only if he is in a position to defend himself. so don't put him in front of kids who are bigger than him, physically. slowly he will get used to being confident and one who can not be bullied around.
the more dependent you make him, the worse it will become. and dependency is not only about physical protection. it is also about being able to think for himself about what actions to take. you will not be there all the time to think for him. if you teach him to fight back all the time then sometime he may be in front of big kids. and he can be physically hurt.
what you must tell him that no one has right to hurt others in this world. and if someone does that then that is not right. and anything that is not right needs to be responded appropriately. response will be dependent on situation. then you may ask him some questions and let him respond to that to see how his thought process works. if you see a possibility to influence his thoughts, you can do that. but like i said earlier please don't make him dependent on you for thinking about all his actions.
i know it must be difficult but this is the learning process he had to go sometime in his life. good that it is happening at early stage.
Ladies thanks for your valuable suggestions.
Most of the suggestions says that I do not need to go verbally and ask my child to hit others instead make him independent and make him have self respect and this should help him become strong enough to defend himself.
Am planning to work on this approach.