Comebacks dont matter when you can just point at the shoes and call him broke (im not a teen anymore but come on guys lol, thats when you fit in to avoid issues or have issues, no magical way out)
Comment on My son got Nikes so he doesn't get teased.
oce@jlai.lu 9 hours ago
Did you try to teach him to be proud of his independence and differences? Maybe you can work with him on nice come backs against the teasing.
dil@lemmy.zip 8 hours ago
Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
There is a way out, but it involves not caring what classmates think. That’s a high bar for a lot of kids, especially in middle school, and kids have to come to that conclusion on their own. No amount of adults telling them “you shouldn’t care” will change things.
By high school I found social success after not caring what others thought. But I had been bullied my whole school experience up til that point, so by high school I had run out of fucks to give. In other words, I learned the hard way, but that’s something every teen has to figure out for themselves.
QuizzaciousOtter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 hours ago
Is it even possible to not care at this age though? At this point school and interacting with your peers is a vast majority of your life. I don’t think I have ever seen a kid being bullied every day at school and not caring. How can you not care if you’re scared?
I guess it is possible as you get older, more mature and closer to adulthood. But for a kid in a primary or middle school? Kinda hard to imagine for me.
Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Oh, it’s absolutely possible, but only after experiencing such isolation that you come to prefer your own company.
The last straw for me came when I finally stood up to my so-called “best friend,” who acted perfectly sweet when we were alone, but who threw me under the bus whenever my bullies were around. Our families were (and sadly, still are) friends, so I’d known her since she was born and there was a lot of social pressure for us to hang out together. She abused me constantly and loved to fuck with my head. I figured that if that was the “best” friend I could have, then I didn’t need friends at all. One day on the bus home, shortly after she’d spread yet another rumor about me, I called her a traitor and a backstabber.
She immediately turned to the bullies sitting behind us (whose hobbies include talking about me, stealing my stuff, and putting gum in my hair) and said, “That’s so funny! She just called me a traitor!” Yep, I was done.
That was in my last year of middle school. Going into high school, I was resolved to not give a fuck what anybody said about me. I decided to stop trying to change myself to fit in. I embraced my own interests without a care what anybody would say.
And that first year of high school was when I ended up making actual, real friends for the first time. People who actually get me. The payoff was huge and still benefits me today, but it came at a great cost during my most impressionable age.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Yes, if they have already figured out how to handle bullies in grade school/middle school. Early grade school there was a bully who picked on me and my older brother helped out. By grade five I was the one helping other kids who were being bullied.
A lot of credit goes to youth groups like 4-H for helping to build self confidence and how to care for others. May have been lucky getting a solid local group though.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I don’t know about now, but back in the 90s the magical out was that you punched them in the face.
Back then the concept of a school shooting didn’t exist, and parents didn’t threaten to sue the school every 5 minutes.
So teachers would just let the fights go.
“Oh, Billy tried bullying Bobby, and now Bobby punched Billy in the face? Eh…call me when they break bones and spill blood. I’m going to go make popcorn.”
These days? I’m sure both kids would get expelled.
Delphia@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Yep. I was poor and weird but I was also 6 foot tall and pretty big. Its amazing what one really good punch to the face of someone does to your rep for the rest of high school.
BorgDrone@feddit.nl 6 hours ago
But it’s not “his independence” if it wasn’t his choice to buy those shoes. You cannot be proud of your own choices when they weren’t your own choices.
notnotmike@programming.dev 4 hours ago
That’s actually a really good point you’ve made here. It’s easy to defend the shoes as a parent because you’re the one who (1) understands the rationale behind buying them and (2) made the decision to buy them
I wonder if a good decision in this scenario is to just give the child a shoe allowance and let them pick. If they want Nike’s they will have to find a pair that fits the budget
dil@lemmy.zip 8 hours ago
he could be but hes gonna get roasted for sketchers til college probably
Deceptichum@quokk.au 7 hours ago
Oh man it’s like every out of touch bad advice I was given as a kid came back.