We need to talk about this.
I see it every year, right around when school starts. Parents coaching their kids to hit back if someone hits them first. I get it. I do. Nobody wants to watch their child get picked on. Nobody wants to raise a kid who can’t stand up for themselves.
But here’s what we’re not talking about: what happens after the hitting back.
Your kid gets suspended. Your kid becomes the aggressor in the principal’s office. Your kid learns that the way you solve a physical conflict is with more physical conflict, and you have just handed them a social tool that is going to work against them for the rest of their school career.
I posted a reel on this and the comments were everything. Parents who agreed. Parents who pushed back. And a whole lot of people in the middle who said “but what else are they supposed to do?”
Here’s what I taught my kids: tell an adult, and if an adult doesn’t help, find another adult. Document it. Remove yourself from the situation. And if you are in physical danger, actual physical danger, not “he looked at me wrong,” protect yourself.
That’s different from retaliating. That’s different from meeting violence with more violence.
We are not raising kids for the school yard. We are raising people who are going to have to navigate workplaces and relationships and conflict for the rest of their lives. Teaching them to hit back is a short-term solution to a long-term problem.
The goal is to raise a kid who knows the difference between protecting themselves and escalating a situation. Those are not the same thing.
What are you teaching your kids about handling conflict at school?
