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kids and martial arts?

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shmokes:
Most of the kids I knew who were in martial arts were more likely to get bullied.  And the martial arts training didn't help in the slightest.  If you don't want your kid to be bullied, get them in soccer and football and basketball and baseball early.  Make sure they are not awkward in sports.  If you don't want your kid to be bullied I think it will be much more effective to help them learn to excel socially, fit in with others, etc., than to teach them how to lay the beat down.  And, in reality, your kids are probably never going to use their karate skills to lay the beat down on anybody outside the controlled environment of a dojo or whatever.

Seriously . . . marital arts is a sport dominated by the uncool.  If you don't want your kid to be bullied, help him be cool.  Don't put him in a sport that only serves to single him out as the weird kid.  When he gets picked last for baseball at recess, no amount of karate chopping is going to make him feel better about that.  And it is this social awkwardness more than anything that will make him the target of bullies.  And it is this social awkwardness, rather than some deficiency in self-defense skills, that will give him a lack of self-confidence (which will probably also keep him from actually testing his mettle against any real bully).

Ya know . . . maybe martial arts is fine.  But it's kind of goofy and useless.  Put your kid in mainstream sports.  Hell . . . put him in plain old boxing.  But don't put him in tai kwon do or kung fu or chai tea.  At the very least don't do it in lieu of useful things.  Even if everything pans out exactly according to plan, and the school bully comes after him, only to have his ass handed to him by your little karate champ, your kid's still going to be the weird kid. He's not going to be a hero.  He's not going to gain friends.  The hero is the kid that runs down the fly ball and then get's it back to first base for a double.  That kid doesn't get bullied.  That kid gets the girls.

Don't fight your childhood demons vicariously.  

edit: spelling

shmokes:
I don't mean singled out for being in karate.  They will be singled out for not being good at cool things.  They will be singled out for being the Star Wars kid.



ChadTower:

--- Quote from: pinballjim on October 30, 2009, 02:47:27 pm ---Maybe I had a different experience as a kid, but I did tae kwon do a couple years and I always had classmates that did martial arts... I don't recall any of them being singled out for it, but I don't recall any of them doing the "I'm tough because I know karate!" routine.

--- End quote ---

I saw a black belt friend get "bullied" once because the dude knew he wasn't going to do anything.  Here bullying pretty much consisted of getting in his face and egging him on if you want to call that bullying.  The guy sure as hell wasn't going to touch him. Standing there smirking at someone isn't exactly humiliating.

The point of the thread, until bullying was brought up, didn't have anything to do with avoiding bullies.  It just sort of went there because that's the primary purpose a lot of people see for the martial arts.  It interests me for my kids as a positive lifestyle through fitness, confidence, accomplishment, and discipline.  It isn't an alternative to traditional sports unless they would make that choice themselves.

Actually, my older son already made that choice, and part of what I'm doing is finding him that alternative.

shardian:
I only knew one guy who did the "I'm tough because I do Tae Kwon Doe"...he really was tough though.

Grasshopper:

--- Quote from: shmokes on October 30, 2009, 02:38:41 pm ---Most of the kids I knew who were in martial arts were more likely to get bullied.  And the martial arts training didn't help in the slightest.  If you don't want your kid to be bullied, get them in soccer and football and basketball and baseball early.  Make sure they are not awkward in sports.

--- End quote ---

Well that's fine if the kid already has an interest in those sports. But if you're asking the kid to do things he's not really interested in, or doesn't even like, just to fit in and minimise the possibility of being bullied then that's sending out a really bad message. You're essentially saying that the problem lies not with the bully but with the bully's victim. It's a form of appeasement and in the long run will probably do just as much harm to the kid's self esteem as being bullied.

As the slightly sinister Japanese saying goes - The nail that sticks out gets hammered in. Is that the type of value you want to promote?

I believe it's more constructive to encourage kids to be themselves and participate in activities they actually enjoy. And if that happens to lead to bullying then just encourage them to stand up for themselves.

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