Need manly advice. Little child being bullied!

[Ezio]

Hello guys,

There is a cousin of mine who is 4-5 years old. He is very pure and crystal hearted. He is very intelligent, compassionate and overly peaceful . However, other low intelligent and low life evil kids seem to be exploiting his naive thinking by threatening him or bully him in any other way.

He is in kindergarten now. So, I do not want somebody to cause him an emotional trauma which could affect his mental strength. Therefore, I must do something to save the kid. I consider this cousin as my own kid, brother or I would go as far as to say my other half. I will allow no evil kid to mistreat him. Especially with the fact that I was bullied myself before and I know how bad bullying can be.

The problem is that I don't know how I should handle this situation properly. I have been thinking to go and scold the other kid/kids personally and even intimdate them indirectly so they would never dare touch my brother again. However, in case the bully would tell his parents, it could probably cause me drama and problems with his parents. I am not afraid to do that, if that is what it takes, but I don't want to overreact and create situations that could have been unneccessary, while there could be smarter choices.

I want the end result to be that my brother to get bully free and be reassured and feel that he has my support and I ll be there for him anytime, so he can act and express himself without worrying that the bully could bother him.

I have read some google first pages about how to handle the situation but some seem like girls telling you how to seduce a girl. You get the irony.
Thus, the only place which I consider credibile for giving correct man advice is this place, so that is why I am asking here.

So, what is the proper way to handle this situation?

Thank you!

 

[Lucky]

Alright firstly teach your cousin how to handle himself in a fight because if he gets into one and fights back there's a high chance that the bullies will leave him alone as bullies normally go for easy targets (Be aware i'm not sure if his parents will be happy with this option) now he could tell the teacher which would most likely conclude with his parents and the bully's coming along and sorting out the problem but sometimes teachers can be complete idiots just like mine in primary. And for the last one i could come up with you could teach him how to socially handle these situations just like some of the articles on this site but he's quite young so he might not fully understand this option.
so yeah that's what i got but if you need more help just message me and I'll see what i can do.

 

[Ezio]

Hello, Lucky!

Thanks for your reply!

I can't teach him how to handle himself in a fight because I doubt he will understand what I am saying. Although, I advised him to fight back verbally but I know that might not work because he will either forget or will not be able to remember what I said to him and apply properly. Mind his age.

So, yeah, as for now, I am looking for advice on what is the best way for me to react to his bullies.

 

[Marcellus]

Talk to the teachers looking after him and the parents of these little bullies, there is in no way that I would let my little nephew/cousins/brother or anything get bullied by anyone else.

 

[Ezio]

Two countering advices there.

At the moment, I am trying to do those.

I found out I am not allowed to get inside the kindergarten so I have been giving him pep-talk, to which he asked a question. He said: "Should I hit him back?"

The bullies are older than him and probably physically stronger. What would be the right thing to answer?

The answer I have to him was: "Scream back to them". I did not mention hitting or responding physically because I was afraid he might get himself hurt.

 

[Inbocca]

Bullies love to target the intelligent, compassionate ones. If he doesn't learn to deal with it now, it will get worse. Speaking from experience.

You can stand up to bullies without getting physical. Words can be powerful, and he sounds like a smart kid. Especially if they're bigger/stronger, he should try to avoid violence if he can. Even if he kicks their asses, teachers tend to blame both parties in fights. This part sucks because if they know he can run laps around them intellectually, they're more likely to make things physical if they think they can beat him that way. If it comes down to it, though, it's more important that he stands up for himself. All it takes is one time showing that he's not going to tolerate being picked on and they'll move on to easier prey.

Screaming might not do a whole lot except alert teachers to the situation, which can be seen as an act of cowardice. Made plenty of those blunders growing up, strongly disadvise against doing things like hanging out in "safe areas", sitting next to teachers all the time, running away, etc. What does work well is saying "I don't want to fight you" but making it clear that he will if he has to. Even if he doesn't "win" (no one ever really wins), if he holds his own it's too much work for them to try again.

 

[Ezio]

Thank you, Slay and Inbocca. Interesting views and approaches to this problem.

This is actually a dilemma I had my whole life. Fight or be civil by backing off. The second is intellectually appealing and might be what it should really be, but the world is wild and sometimes you have to act based on jungle rules. So, if you are stronger, fight, if you are not, try to be civil and get away intellectually. However, violence which is a result of emotions, is not the smartest choice as the emotion often is not smart by itself, so the ultimate solution is to be civil and if possible to remove or prevent yourself from getting into arenas where the physique is the main weapon. I have not figured it out fully yet, but I am in the process.


However, both of your advices have a lot useful insight within and I am able to understand what you are trying to say and I will happily absorb it.

Regarding the actual situation, that I wrote about in this post, I talked to the kid's father and I was so happy to know that he had similiar views to what you guys have written above. He seemed to understand the mechanisms behind it, unlike my father, who always blamed me if I got into a fight or someone attacked me. I asked him if I could go to his kindergarten, but he said that I would not be allowed as only parents are allowed. But his father (my uncle) is still not doing something about it actively. I think he is just hoping that that won't have an effect on him and he would be able to correct later any damage caused, so maybe that's the same I should do, even though I do not agree fully with this approach.