I had a strong sense of identity, I had good results, a good family life, my parents had my back, etc.. That didn't stop me from being bullied or pissed on while being held down by fucking assholes. So, I'd say, you either don't know what bullying is like or you're overly naive. And by the way, having my parents having my back and telling my teachers about the bullying just made things worse. It only improved when I changed school and punched the first guy who namecalled me.
Anyway, to respond to your points:
> What you’re describing doesn’t sound like parenting to me, it’s giving in to peer pressure.
What I'm describing is knowing how society works and planning around it. It doesn't mean that I would give unrestricted access to social medias, it also doesn't mean that I would not be there to guide my child about how to use them, what the dangers are etc...
I'm saying that straight up abstinence is not a good idea and doesn't work if your child lives in a society that doesn't abstain. There are also perverse effects whereby preventing your child from completely accessing social medias, you end up with a child who just hides it from you.
> If your kid’s peers all gain a liking for drugs or gambling or some other vice and they bully your child for not partaking, are you going to tell your child to participate?
I'd probably consider switching my child to a different school.
> you either don't know what bullying is like or you're overly naive
I was about to say teach your child self-defense and how to fight, and the last sentence of that same paragraph just proved my point.
Look, as a parent, your goal should not be to teach your child how to avoid bullying. That's not within your control, nor your child, and in the real world, even once your child is grown up, there's always some moron out there in the world who's going to bully you or want to beat you up, sometimes for no reason, sometimes for not being like them. That's not an excuse to teach your child to be like other children just for the sake of conformity because that is the wrong thing to teach. You teach them how to fight back when people beat them up for being the way that they are. None of your other points matter against that.
Fair point but I'd argue that self defense and knowing how to fight helps but I was a year younger than everyone else (skipped a grade) and was fairly small for my age until I hit a growth spurt (which coincided with when I changed school by graduating middle school and went to high school). I'm not sure I would have been half as successful when I first was bullied.
The thing too is that I'm also not convinced abstinence on something that's part of society and that your kid will have when they grow up is that useful anyway. Social media is unfortunately needed to function in society so learning to use it reasonably (and not in an addictive manner) has value too.
That said, yes I absolutely will teach my son to fight back, violence in some circumstances is a useful tool to have.
> Social media is unfortunately needed to function in society so learning to use it reasonably (and not in an addictive manner) has value too.
No, wrong again. It’s not necessary to function and there already are secure messaging apps through which kids and adults can communicate. You don’t have to have a Facebook page. You don’t need an IG profile of portraits where you pose like a model. You don’t need to make funny Tiktok videos.
This entire issue is being murkied by adults who are projecting their deep-seated bullying issues as value judgments on how to raise children when evidently they haven’t sorted themselves out and they are already having kids.
Anyway, to respond to your points:
> What you’re describing doesn’t sound like parenting to me, it’s giving in to peer pressure.
What I'm describing is knowing how society works and planning around it. It doesn't mean that I would give unrestricted access to social medias, it also doesn't mean that I would not be there to guide my child about how to use them, what the dangers are etc...
I'm saying that straight up abstinence is not a good idea and doesn't work if your child lives in a society that doesn't abstain. There are also perverse effects whereby preventing your child from completely accessing social medias, you end up with a child who just hides it from you.
> If your kid’s peers all gain a liking for drugs or gambling or some other vice and they bully your child for not partaking, are you going to tell your child to participate?
I'd probably consider switching my child to a different school.