During the day at Pre-School, my daughter was sitting on a chair playing a game, and another kid came up to her and tried to push her out of the chair and take her game. So, she reacted to defend herself, and unfortunately bit the kid. Luckily, no damage was done.

When I sat her down to explain that biting is never OK, I found myself saying, "Its OK to defend yourself, but you can't bite." My wife disagreed and said that the right thing to do is say "Stop!" and tell the teacher. This of course is a common incident for a pre-schooler and no big deal, but for the past two weeks I have been thinking about it.

I guess what I'm trying to do is come up with a set of beliefs on how to teach my daughter to deal with the bullies of the world and dominant personalities in general. I don't want to her to grow up training herself to be helpless since people who feel helpless are rarely happy. On the other hand, I don't want her to grow up learning to react in anger since people who react in anger are also rarely happy. So, what does your favorite philosophy, philosopher, or religion teach you about 1) Defending yourself against physical harm of another and 2) protecting yourself from the bullies and dominant personalities of the world?

1) Use your tounge as a sword
2) All people shyte. Think about it

Teach your daughter to have empathy and see a promise in all people that will make it hard to give up on them and see them in such terms that they deserve such atrocities lol. Teach her that a bully or bad mannered kid has already been failed by their parents and environment somehow. Dont add to it lol. You need to be able to stand up to them and refuse their abuse but do so without giving up on their chance for redemption and friendship. Of course teach these things in a light version by example and simple stories. Proper recordings of classic kids books may help to see some sympathy for other kids without refusing to stand up for what is fair.

Maybe teach her that some bad timing and luck can lead to a permanent injury to other kids over in the end unimportant things such as toys and games.

Ask of course people who deal with kids from a professional position and have seen what works at such age.

Biting the kid was +EV assuming it hurt, and moreso if the other kids saw it (and they're old enough to put 2 and 2 together). Relying on authority for such things is beyond idiotic- their main goal is to make the problem go away, not to enforce any kind of justice.

I don't really know what practical information you might find on the subject with philosophers. Even most religious viewpoints will give you "conflicting" information because there's not a really good one-size-fits-all approach to conflict. You just have to deal with them as they come, and that is gained mostly through experiences. (Which is why it worries me if the first response is to run to an authority figure, because it's extremely limiting and not always a reasonable approach.)

However, a good idea to have is the idea of being "slow to anger" and to be aware of your own emotional states as you deal with conflict. Generally speaking, you should be manage a slow escalation of responses. Can this be resolved person to person with words? Vocal escalation (speaking louder/more forcefully, speaking in a way to draw attention without "giving ground" -- that is, running away to bring an authority figure back) should precede physical escalation (aggressive physical actions, which may at some point include hitting/kicking).

I disagree with much of Masque's approach. While empathy is important, it doesn't actually resolve conflict when the other side isn't doing it. And blaming the parents is nearly completely wrong as a child development concept for children in that age range. I think it also teaches contempt for the other person's parents and general arrogance far more than it actually teaches empathy. (Generally, it's just blame-placing without any actual intellectual engagement.)

Reading stories does create basic models for behaviors, but "classic kids books" aren't going to help so much with real life conflict at this age. But there are probably some short stories out there for younger kids that demonstrate conflict and conflict resolution in practical ways.

+1
not sure what some of posters confuse...

next time tell your kid:
words vs words
physical force vs physical force


your kid did alright. I would tell mine to understand when people attack they what something, and it is always your right/obligation to not give if you don't want.

At her age she just needs to learn basic socialization skills like, "don't bite', "don't punch". She will mostly learn her values from what she observes in the home.


PairTheBoard

exercise that will to power, child

So, there have been some interesting thoughts which I will respond to later tonight, and I do appreciate it. But, just to make sure we're all on the same page, I'm not looking for advice on how to handle this specific situation. This situation caused me to think about how to teach her to handle these situations throughout her life. Obviously when she's 16, if someone tries to harm her, bully her, influence her, or hurt her feelings, she's not gonna bite the person. Secondly, I chose to post this in this forum since you guys know a lot about philosophy and religion, and I thought it'd be interesting to see how great thinkers throughout history have approached this sort of thing. Overall, it is an important topic to me because in all honesty, I don't think I have it figured out at the age of 31. Most importantly, I've met a lot of adults who seem affected by past events of this nature, and I'm trying to come up with strategies for my daughter so that she doesn't end up like that.

The important thing is to raise up a kid that stands up for herself and who is confident to do so in the best manner possible. If your life is at risk all is allowed of course biting too why not. But you need to know when this is the case and time for it and a child will not learn that at that age but will get there gradually. If someone is very threatening and violent towards her she must feel free to be strong too or get out of it and deal with it later. She can use her hands and push and slap the other kid too if needed but not before first talking to that kid or evaluating how unimportant it all may be in the end. She can outsmart the other kid and be creative too.


You are not an animal (well you are this is why you naturally bite too but we try to create a civilization here lol) to behave that way towards other people. Your goal is to raise an ethical kid not a dog that all are afraid of.

Going to teachers makes you look bad to other kids. Standing up is appreciated. You can give and receive diseases by biting too.

Sometimes kids bite and pinch and pull hairs at that age and doesnt mean a lot because it depends how vicious the other kid was and eventually against loser aholes all the way to high school you will have to get into fights that never see the end of it lol . You just want to teach your kid to defend and hold ground but not hate the other kid fundamentally and see no other way out than pure force always.

The kid may not be the greatest idea to go talk to the teacher as this happens but the parent can go and talk to the teacher and alert them that the kid is abused and demand that the teacher talks to all kids how they should respect each other and not take their toys or push them around.


Fighting a little bit is not a big deal because getting physical to defend yourself is inevitable in kids games. But it must be done with some limits in place. You can get into tons of fights and never never lose touch with the idea that you do not fundamentally wish harm for the other kid. You do not want to become what they are, reckless and evil. You want to be their friend and show them a better example of how to play and treat others. Hold your ground if they cant reason with but do not escalate things happily as if its a good thing.

This is where the game is lost guys. Feel free to raise a predator and a sociopath by not teaching them empathy, only to fight effectively. If all the ahole parents were teaching their kids empathy, fights at school would be for natural little things and not for some systematic bullying and abuse of other people.

The other kid was rude and selfish. If all kids start to bite and scratch each other soon enough you will find that someone may lose an eye or something when they start using pencils. This is why bloody empathy and protection of your own body are more important that some stupid loss of a game.

Can't join them, bite them

I teach compassion for bullies, helps empathize with their pain and provides leverage to confront them and not become one.

Parental education about bullying and bullying behaviors is a place to start. Touch base with the school's guidance counselor for their current curriculum. Use google.

I basically agree with AaronW on this one, but I have no idea how well a pre-schooler can understand any of that. Obviously strategies change as situations change and physical conflict becomes less and less desirable. If your kid isn't responding to anything except obvious and serious overt aggression now, I really don't see a problem, and if that's happening enough that it actually is becoming a serious problem, then it's pretty likely that you have her in an awful environment.

Once the aggression is nonphysical, there's often not a simple strategy. It's a group duty to make sure the aggression is a bad strategy, but in groups that don't understand that (or worse, and not rarely, fetishize it), the groups are going to be run by *******s and unless you're bringing something exceptional to the table, you're unlikely to change that in a reasonable fashion. That's a huge failing of society today.

Brought to you by Thrasymachus.

azzhole is censored? What kind of pansy-ass cuck bitches run this place?

Important to note that some school policies can leave little room for who started it and bullies may tend to act manipulative around authority. So a 'fight back' mentality could have some unintended consequences if not checked.

7 years after the first bully incident




30 years after the first bite incident, countless of antibullying defenses later, the mother of all strike backs is finally here;

It's been happening more often then you think...
I think mdz is in on it

best to not go to that school...

"That's what happens when you restrict guns" (NRA).

or

"But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also." Matthew 5:39, of course

It's definitely harder, but you have to start somewhere. Mostly, I think it's an issue of gaining the experiences.

Even if the kids can't articulate their emotions, they are aware of them. Everyone has seen the 2 year old be perfectly okay and then throw a fit when the parent comes around to get attention. So there is an internal logic at work. Kids can and do adjust that logic as their awareness of information becomes more prevalent.

How you debrief those types of events with children is where they learn the patterns of thought. What happened? What did you do first? What should you have done first? Those are the types of questions to ask and the types of conversations to have.

This paragraph leads me to believe you have very little practical experience working with children ages 5 and under. Am I correct?

I also suspect you haven't worked much with kids in the 5-10 year old range as well, though I don't feel quite as confident about that.

Granted such a privilege is even practical , that's a pretty extreme choice while other options to choose the time , place, and method for battle are available.

So are you arguing children can't learn about empathy from an early age? Or that adults can't be bullies? I'm not confident you even made an argument!

Part of the reason I wanted to apply philosophical beliefs to this problem is to avoid personal attacks. I will try to come up with an example of what I had in mind--tomorrow I will make an attempt at summarizing how Buddhists would approach this problem.

I don't know whether to applaud your ability to read what I wrote, or shake my head because you tried to read something into what I wrote that literally isn't there. The jump from what I wrote to what you tried to guess I might be arguing is like you were playing blindfolded darts.