Is it bad to tell my kid to fight back against bullies?

I believe I had mentioned a few weeks ago that my beloved offspring had just turned four years old.

If I didn’t mention it here, then I don’t know where I wrote about that.

Anyway, now you know in case you did not.

The few weeks preceding her turning four were very tumultuous.

It was as if she was shedding off toddlerhood and wanted to get all the three-year-old tantrums out of her system.

Of course, I, being a first-time mother and therefore absolutely gullible, thought this new age would be free of tantrums completely.

But every age has its own set of tantrums. Anyway, I love this four-year-old of mine.

Her level of conversation has grown to a bigger scale, where we can have wonderful conversations.

It just amazes me every day the number of things she actually knows (and where she learnt them from).

Of course, I have also learnt very quickly that the average four-year-old has a very overactive imagination, so, a lot of times in our conversations, I have had to take what she says to me with a pinch of salt.

About a week ago, she told me about this altercation she had had at school.

She said that some other kid in her class had pulled her hair and from how upset she seemed, my intuition told me that she was telling the truth and not making things up.

I decided to prod her and ask her what she did about that situation.

I was expecting her to tell me she had gone ahead and told her teacher about.

Also, this Competency Based Curriculum has teachers at her school write down children’s ability to tattle on fellow students as part of their assessment.

I am not sure what that is supposed to do. Story for another day.

She told me that she told the teacher, and the other child was reprimanded with a warning.

To make matters worse, the perpetrator did it again when the teacher was not in class (I don’t know about you, but I think that is a bully).

However, seeing as getting her hair pulled had made her cry, she felt the teacher ought to have done more.

I didn’t even know that a four-year-old could have that sense of justice.

Anyway, she had an elaborate plan to seek vengeance the very next day.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“I am going to hit him with a rock!” she said decidedly.

Now, what I wanted to say to her was that hitting someone with a rock is unacceptable behaviour because they could get seriously hurt.

But I had never been one to back away from a fight with a bully. Guess who taught me that? My mother.

She would tell me to never stand around crying because some bully hit me but to retaliate instead.

“If you get in trouble, I will vouch for you. But only if the bully was in the wrong,” she would tell me.

Which is funny because these days, I am a pacifist.

And instead of telling my girl to turn the other cheek, I told her to make sure she didn’t get in trouble for hitting that kid.

When she’s old enough, I’ll tell her about the importance of using words instead of fists to stand up for oneself.

She never told me whether or not she hit that kid with a stone the next day.

But she hasn’t complained about them ever since either.