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To Save Your Son From Bullies, Teach Him How To Fight

Real world advice to help your son.

A personal story about bullying — How bullying ruins lives — Real kids bleed — Bullying is a parenting problem — How to bully-proof your kid

Responsible parents raise their kids to be able to take care of themselves. Just like bullying is a social problem, it’s a parenting problem. This article shows you how to bully-proof your kids.

I write from experience. I’ll use harsh words and I don’t censor anything. Bully victims live in a tough world. The psychological torment is insane for both sexes. However, boys have to deal with the physical threat of violence. The violence sometimes doubles the psychological torment.

This article is written mainly for the parents of boys. Why? Boys are assholes. We’re aggressive little monkeys when we’re young, and the aggression has to be civilized out of us. Unfortunately, not all parents are capable of doing that. As a result, violence is something boys have to deal with.

But violence also provides a solution.

A fight became a typical bullying episode

Back in elementary school, my class was told to find a partner and work in pairs for a task. I sat with the adopted kid in my class, a Colombian cocktail of racial backgrounds, so we worked together. I was ten years old.

After school, three usual suspects who sometimes called themselves my friends ganged up on me in the hallway. “Are you a faggot or something? You love him so much you want to sit with him? You faggot.” I told them I wasn’t, but the teasing continued. At 29, faggot is more of a playful insult among friends. At 10, you only know it’s an insult. I wanted to go home, but they wouldn’t let me.

Instead, one of them grabbed my backpack and threw me to the ground. One guy sat on top of me, punching my head. The other two cheered on the fight, kicking my stomach and legs. I resisted, covered up, and fought back all at the same time. Every time I got halfway up, they grabbed my backpack and pulled me down again.

Adults to the rescue

Once they saw I had been defeated, they got off me and went on their merry way to home. At home, they ate dinner with their families, talked about what they learned in school, and kept quiet about beating up their classmate.

I had, for the umpteenth time in as many weeks, taken a beating by these two-faced kids who dared to call themselves my friends. I sat down on one of the benches in the hallway, crying my eyes out for what seemed like an hour. I cursed the world and prayed that an adult would help me.

Eventually, a cleaning lady found me. She was horrified by what I told her, and brought me straight to the principal’s office. They called my mother. There was a meeting with the principal.

A few days later, there was a meeting between the kids, the parents, and the school. The kids apologized, and we shook hands.

A couple months later, we fought again.

Bullying ruins lives

The effects of bullying are long lasting. The beatings I went through haunted me for almost twenty years. They weren’t vivid nightmares that woke me up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. Instead, it was a constant tormenting fear. The beatings built an inner voice within me that told me it was safer to stay inside and be quiet.

It wasn’t until my twenties, through lots of psychological work, that I slowly started to take control of my life. The bullying will always be a part of me, but I managed to get through some of it. I realized that I control my own destiny and that I have the ability to tackle these problems straight on. Had I been encouraged to play the part of the victim, I would probably end up disabled with PTSD, clinical depression, chronic anxiety, or some other crippling mental disorder.

Passed up on opportunities

As a result of the bullying, I shied away from opportunities. Throughout middle school and high school, I refused to be part of the student council. In high school, three of my teachers suggested I should be part of the student council. I declined.

In my final year of high school, there was a bit of drama in the student government. The president turned out to be a lazy slob and never showed up for meetings. All the students wanted to pick a new president. Countless students suggested I take on that role. Again, I declined.

I told them it was too much work. In reality, I was afraid. I was afraid to be cut down. I wanted to hide and be ignored. I was afraid people would pick on me, start a fight, and kick my ass.

Regrets

For the longest time, I turned down opportunities. I passed up on the opportunity to move to Thailand. I passed up on a business opportunity that could’ve become something. I stopped myself from moving to Barcelona, which was a dream for a very long time.

These things have now become regrets. Luckily, I’m only 29 and have a chance to redeem myself if I act right. But it wasn’t until I learned to face the world that I overcame the fears.

I don’t want you, your kids, or a kid you know, or anyone else to go through this hell I’ve been through. Too many lives have been ruined by this bullshit, and it’s a hole you’ll be buried in unless you climb out of it.

Who’s to blame for the bullying?

Soft mothers beware: I deal in harsh realities. The advice I’ll give isn’t isn’t nice, pleasant, politically correct, or based on academic research by nerds who spent their time in books. I’m not someone who thinks I understand a problem based on the contents of a book. From my story, you know I’ve been there.

If you have son who‘s being bullied, think of me as your son in twenty years. I’m someone who knows the difference between the world in a book and the world as we live it. When academics discuss bullying, they shy away from the real world. They enter a fantasy world where kids don’t bleed.

I know far too well that kids bleed. I know what’s like to have your friends beat the shit out of you after school, then sit on a bench in the hallway after school crying for hours.

Adult diplomacy doesn’t work

I live in Norway, where anti-bullying campaigns were on the political agenda a few years ago. I have seen a lot of stupid advice on how to deal with bullying. I’ve seen so-called experts on pedagogy and childcare speak about bullying like it’s an academic phenomenon that can be fixed with a political or social plan.

There’s no political or social solution to this nasty scourge. Teachers, principals, schools, local governments, and even national governments are absolutely useless when it comes to bullying.

A parenting problem

Parents often don’t realize their kid is being bullied until their kid comes home bloodied and bruised. Sometimes, parents find out because their kids are crying in their room after school. Other times, it comes after a call from the principal.

There’s always top dog, bottom dog, and a bunch of dogs in the middle. These dominance hierarchies are hard-wired into us and we have to live with them. By the time parents find out that their kids are victims of bullying, the kids have been bottom dog for a while.

When it’s gotten to that point, you have a rescue mission on your hands. You can curse the bullies, the parents of the bullies, the schools, and even the gods, but none of it will help the situation your son is in.

How to help your kid when they’re bullied

As I’ve pointed out, neither local or national governments can completely obliterate bullying. In that sense, it’s your responsibility as a parent to make sure your kid isn’t bullied. You don’t control the children of others, but you have a tremendous amount of power over your own kids.

If your kid is the victim, your best bet is to make him tougher. You can’t overcome bullying through weakness. Let me tell you from experience, weakness is not the solution.

Bullies pick on the weak and the outsiders. While you can’t make your boy belong, you can make him strong. I’ll show you what that looks like.

How to bully-proof your son

The first step is easy. Hit the gym. Unfortunately, there’s a mental game to this that parents often aren’t ready for. This might require tough love. Many kids don’t like the gym and they don’t want to train. But here’s the truth. If you’re a responsible parent, you don’t give your kid the choice to be weak.

If you allow your kids to retreat, they will either get beat up at school until they persevere through it with severe personality defects, commit suicide (or worse, go full Columbine), or they learn how to handle the bullies. It also requires way less than you think to deter bullies. Sometimes, a simple judo throw is enough to make a bully back off forever. Slamming into concrete is scary. And it hurts.

The Fat Tony mindset

Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes, in Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder, about a character called Fat Tony. Fat Tony is the ultimate real world character. He has no time left over for things that don’t work.

Fat Tony lives by a mantra that I have adopted. “Give no shit, take no shit.” It’s elegant in its simplicity, but it carries a much deeper meaning. “Give no shit” is self-explanatory. Be nice. “Take no shit” carries a much deeper meaning.

“Give no shit. Take no shit.”

First, “take no shit” means you don’t take kindly to people who give you shit. Second, and more subtly, it means you’re capable of dishing out punishment when it matters. If your son is weak, he doesn’t have any other choice but to take shit. This is why even small countries have armies.

Becoming dangerous through martial arts

Your son needs to be able to stand up for himself, to stand up against bullies. That ability doesn’t come through weakness and cowardice. It comes through competence. Your son has to become dangerous.

Your son has to become ten times the beast his bullies are. Whatever punishment your son’s bullies can put on him, your son should be able to dish out ten times the damage. The only difference is that your son should know how to rein it in. The combination of danger and ability can be learn from martial arts.

A good martial artist is a trained killer. He’s also trained to hold back that power until it’s self-defense. Kids at the gym I go to have to pledge never to use Muay Thai outside of the gym. It’s very dangerous.

If your kid is small for his age, realize that there are martial arts designed for smaller fighters to beat bigger opponents with technique. In my opinion, those are the best martial arts to choose anyway. I’ve listed some of the most effective martial arts below.

The 5 best anti-bullying martial arts

• Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ)
• Muay Thai
• Boxing
• Sambo
• Judo

I seriously think any parent who has read this article but doesn’t put their kid in martial arts is an irresponsible parent. Responsible parents raise their kids to take care of themselves. Put your kids in martial arts.

What you should do next

1. Google the martial arts I’ve listed. They’re ranked in order so just go down the list until you find a good match.
2. Pick the gym closest to you, and give them a call.
3. Talk to the owner or a trainer and explain the situation about your son being bullied. Support is very important when he’s starting out.
4. Take your kid to the gym, come hell or high water. It’s time for tough love.
5. Over the next 3–6 months, keep forcing your kid to the gym.
6. Watch your kid transform.

If you’re reading this and you don’t yet have a child, you should consider training a martial art for yourself. That way, you can directly teach your children a valuable skill as they grow up.