He’s always wore sketchers. Like since he was 4. Recently, he got really emotionally taking about shoes he wanted for middle school. He said if he doesn’t get Nikes he’s going to get teased. Great fucking marketing work Nike.
He’s always wore sketchers. Like since he was 4. Recently, he got really emotionally taking about shoes he wanted for middle school. He said if he doesn’t get Nikes he’s going to get teased. Great fucking marketing work Nike.
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.
As far as I remember (25 years ago), this doesn’t work. Kids just don’t appreciate witty comebacks
If anything they lean in and double down.
It works if they’re not comebacks, but actually hurtful insults.
They go hard, you go harder.
That poor kid is getting beaten up lmao
I avoided bullying in school by being fucking oblivious. It was effective.
Maybe that could be taught
You know what works?
Punching your bully in the face
Oh man it’s like every out of touch bad advice I was given as a kid came back.
Being proud of your independence and difference is bad advice? What’s your world like then, submitting and following others?
Yeah let’s be proud of his independence by promoting him to make choices such as what shoes he wears.
The kid wants something so he can practice the art of being social and fitting in. You are not enriching their lives by giving them the answer without letting them work it out and come to their own understanding.
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)
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. 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.
The trick is not to care most of the time. Then the day you start caring and throwing punches they’re not prepared
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.
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.
The kids that dont ocassionally crash out to defend themselves are the ones ppl watch as schoolshooters like the ones that never defended themselves growing up and just simmer, the quiet ones
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.
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
Kids this age are able to pexress what they want. While he probably didn’t at 4, it’s possible he agreed or even asked for the last ones he got.
I guess he had more than one pair and he could have been asking for the last ones.
he could be but hes gonna get roasted for sketchers til college probably