I've been on both sides of this parenting fence, to some degree.

My 11 year old daughter is Ms Athletic, so she always runs with her sports friends (the girls from basketball and boys from baseball, primarily). She's never had a problem with bullying and has been bold enough to step forward when her friend was starting to bully some of the smaller kids around.

My 7 year old son, on the other hand, isn't friends with many of the boys in his class (a couple from his baseball team, but most of his team goes to another elementary school), but the girls love him. He's had a couple problems with neighborhood kids giving him grief at the bus stop/on the bus, and with a couple of the older boys at school. I've had no problems addressing the neighborhood kids, as our house is the regular hangout of the neighborhood (they don't want to play nice, they're welcome to go play elsewhere). My daughter put her foot down with the older boys at school, but this is their last year in the same school, so I'm curious as to what he'll do next year without her watching over him.


On the flip side...I got to have a meeting at the school this year with a teacher my son had in Kindergarten because she saw him get mad and push a girl down on the playground during recess. The story she put together from both kids is that the girl was saying mean things about my daughter and my son had his fill of it and was trying to stand up for her (as she's done for him).

Needless to say, we've had lengthy talks about how we're proud of his reasons, but not his methods, about what is and is not acceptable playground behavior, and why his actions weren't acceptable.

 

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