Furry as bullying
January 26, 2024 2:33 AM Subscribe
I hope to get some good advice here. My nine year old girl is being bullied by a boy in her class. One of his daily insults is calling her a furry.
How to deal with this? I know that it’s meant to be derogatory and to get the boys to laugh at her. She does not identify as a “furry” and is unable to defend herself. What is this mean as an insult? How can she deal with it? Advice appreciated.
How to deal with this? I know that it’s meant to be derogatory and to get the boys to laugh at her. She does not identify as a “furry” and is unable to defend herself. What is this mean as an insult? How can she deal with it? Advice appreciated.
I would suggest not focusing on this word, because it has no meaning or significance other than being something he's found he can say to upset her. Even if you and the school were able to stop him from saying this word in particular, he would find something else to say or do to upset her. It is of no consequence to him at all.
The only facts in the situation that matter are: your daughter is being bullied, daily, by this boy. I suggest you focus on that.
Asking what she can do about it is a wildly inappropriate thing to do. She has absolutely no power to do anything about it at all. She is legally compelled to be be in the room with him and she is not responsible for his actions. This is for you and the school to deal with.
posted by automatronic at 3:17 AM on January 26, 2024 [6 favorites]
The only facts in the situation that matter are: your daughter is being bullied, daily, by this boy. I suggest you focus on that.
Asking what she can do about it is a wildly inappropriate thing to do. She has absolutely no power to do anything about it at all. She is legally compelled to be be in the room with him and she is not responsible for his actions. This is for you and the school to deal with.
posted by automatronic at 3:17 AM on January 26, 2024 [6 favorites]
Response by poster: Thank you so much for replies so far- both of them! I was posting in my phone and did not take the time to clarify my language- I am asking both what I should do and also how my daughter can deal with it in the moment. I would never want to be do inappropriate as to suggest that she alone is responsible for figuring it out alone but in my experience even if parents are talked to and the school gets involved what happens in the hallways, playground, etc while still inside the school are out of sight of adults quite often. So yes please do let me know tactics or tools she can have at her disposal. My question about the word furry as an insult is that I’m unfamiliar with it…and have a basic vibe that it is somewhat sexually charged when being used as an insult this way. I hope this is clarifying.
posted by catrae at 3:40 AM on January 26, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by catrae at 3:40 AM on January 26, 2024 [1 favorite]
The school will tell you what she should do, which is probably as mentioned above, to go directly to the teacher and report it the instant it happens each time.
I agree to defocus the word itself, there's no benefit to starting a discussion on its validity as a slur or whatever at this point. Frigid and dildo were the insults du jour when I was that age, none of us knew what they meant just that it was bad and possibly a bit "dirty".
If she's resistant to "telling" do it anyhow, better she be called a telltale than a furry I guess? I don't expect even an empathic 9 year old to buy into "so he won't do it to other people" as a motivator, I think a lot of tormented kids would be fine with their bully's attention moving on, but you know your kid best.
posted by Iteki at 3:49 AM on January 26, 2024
I agree to defocus the word itself, there's no benefit to starting a discussion on its validity as a slur or whatever at this point. Frigid and dildo were the insults du jour when I was that age, none of us knew what they meant just that it was bad and possibly a bit "dirty".
If she's resistant to "telling" do it anyhow, better she be called a telltale than a furry I guess? I don't expect even an empathic 9 year old to buy into "so he won't do it to other people" as a motivator, I think a lot of tormented kids would be fine with their bully's attention moving on, but you know your kid best.
posted by Iteki at 3:49 AM on January 26, 2024
Best answer: There's a lot of crossover between furry and queer/ trans communities. That's part of why Florida Republicans recently swept furries into their anti-drag bills. It's part of that nasty "gays are predators" moral panic propaganda.
I have no idea if the bully has picked up on this connection or just thinks it's a slur, maybe one with vague sexual connotations... but I don't think you should totally ignore these latent themes. It's trickle-down from a much broader campaign of homophobia, transphobia, and sexual repression. (I agree that right now you should focus on stopping the bullying though!)
Children pick up on gender norms by age three, and have their first experiences of sexual attraction between nine and thirteen. Some kids can correctly identify their orientations before the end of elementary school. If your kid is being targeted, there is actually a chance the bully has picked up on some gender or sexual difference you haven't noticed yet. Kids have a finely tuned radar for that sort of thing. After you deal with the bullying, it might be time to start having some affirming conversations at home. If nothing else, your kid will grow into a good ally and be better equipped to deal with hateful behavior and misogyny!
posted by lloquat at 4:04 AM on January 26, 2024 [13 favorites]
I have no idea if the bully has picked up on this connection or just thinks it's a slur, maybe one with vague sexual connotations... but I don't think you should totally ignore these latent themes. It's trickle-down from a much broader campaign of homophobia, transphobia, and sexual repression. (I agree that right now you should focus on stopping the bullying though!)
Children pick up on gender norms by age three, and have their first experiences of sexual attraction between nine and thirteen. Some kids can correctly identify their orientations before the end of elementary school. If your kid is being targeted, there is actually a chance the bully has picked up on some gender or sexual difference you haven't noticed yet. Kids have a finely tuned radar for that sort of thing. After you deal with the bullying, it might be time to start having some affirming conversations at home. If nothing else, your kid will grow into a good ally and be better equipped to deal with hateful behavior and misogyny!
posted by lloquat at 4:04 AM on January 26, 2024 [13 favorites]
Best answer: I was bullied a lot very aggressively for years and it was not very good for me in the long term. This was a different time, where even well-meaning adults believed that there was nothing they could do and that if they intervened it would just make the bullying worse. In retrospect, I don't believe that's the case.
There probably isn't much she can do in the moment unless she is willing to hit or bully harder, like calling the kid a worse name, and I remember being very unwilling to do that even though of course as a kid I knew what worse names I could leverage.
On the one hand, a lot of bullies do have stuff going wrong at home, etc, but on the other, the kids who bullied me were from rich families who supported and indulged them and one of them was absolutely sociopathic - even as an adult, I look back on his maliciousness and the pleasure he took in it and find it scary. It's a mistake to get too sympathetic to bullies, IMO - a lot of teachers and even parents get into this headspace of "oh, the poor kid is probably being abused at home, that's why he organizes the abuse of other children", but that's really not how it works. These kids are old enough to have an elementary moral compass and they're definitely old enough to get pleasure from hurting others, which is mostly why they do it.
Are there other issues lurking in the background? Is your child different in some way? My family was poorer, fatter and more interested in academics than my peers and I grew up in a right-wing town, so that led to my being targeted.
Your child is probably, at minimum, being targeted because of gender. It's worth bringing this concern to the school's attention - this is gender-based bullying; is it also racial in nature, directed against the child of immigrants, etc? This may motivate the school to act.
I'd say, ask your daughter whether there are any inflection points which make her day worse. Does she need to sit near one of the bullies? Is there a time or place in school where he's able to target her more? Obviously the school should step in, work with the kid's parents, etc, but at a bare minimum, they should be able to change her seats and potentially change her lunch/gym/etc to get her away from the worst offenders.
One thing I figured out for myself as a kid - I had a class where I sat right in front of a kid who constantly harassed me, and I asked the teacher if I could move. It was transformative - I was able to move to a seat where no one was behind me and where the people around me were focused on their work. And this surprised the hell out of the bullying kid - he really didn't expect me to advocate for myself or be able to escape.
Just by seeking opportunities to remove herself from his reach, your daughter can show that she has agency and will defend herself. In a school situation where she's forced into proximity with a bully, this isn't "running away", it's active self-defence.
Your daughter may believe that there is no way to stop this kid, that trying to stop him will make him worse, etc. Unless she has very strong evidence of this (he is allowed to physically hurt, stalk or otherwise attack other kids) this probably isn't true.
Speaking of that, does your daughter know anything about this kid's other behavior? Is he just a mean loudmouth? Does he target others or just her? Does he physically hurt other kids? This is all stuff that can get brought to the school, and should be brought to the school if he's one of the organizers of more widespread bullying.
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posted by Frowner at 4:40 AM on January 26, 2024 [24 favorites]
There probably isn't much she can do in the moment unless she is willing to hit or bully harder, like calling the kid a worse name, and I remember being very unwilling to do that even though of course as a kid I knew what worse names I could leverage.
On the one hand, a lot of bullies do have stuff going wrong at home, etc, but on the other, the kids who bullied me were from rich families who supported and indulged them and one of them was absolutely sociopathic - even as an adult, I look back on his maliciousness and the pleasure he took in it and find it scary. It's a mistake to get too sympathetic to bullies, IMO - a lot of teachers and even parents get into this headspace of "oh, the poor kid is probably being abused at home, that's why he organizes the abuse of other children", but that's really not how it works. These kids are old enough to have an elementary moral compass and they're definitely old enough to get pleasure from hurting others, which is mostly why they do it.
Are there other issues lurking in the background? Is your child different in some way? My family was poorer, fatter and more interested in academics than my peers and I grew up in a right-wing town, so that led to my being targeted.
Your child is probably, at minimum, being targeted because of gender. It's worth bringing this concern to the school's attention - this is gender-based bullying; is it also racial in nature, directed against the child of immigrants, etc? This may motivate the school to act.
I'd say, ask your daughter whether there are any inflection points which make her day worse. Does she need to sit near one of the bullies? Is there a time or place in school where he's able to target her more? Obviously the school should step in, work with the kid's parents, etc, but at a bare minimum, they should be able to change her seats and potentially change her lunch/gym/etc to get her away from the worst offenders.
One thing I figured out for myself as a kid - I had a class where I sat right in front of a kid who constantly harassed me, and I asked the teacher if I could move. It was transformative - I was able to move to a seat where no one was behind me and where the people around me were focused on their work. And this surprised the hell out of the bullying kid - he really didn't expect me to advocate for myself or be able to escape.
Just by seeking opportunities to remove herself from his reach, your daughter can show that she has agency and will defend herself. In a school situation where she's forced into proximity with a bully, this isn't "running away", it's active self-defence.
Your daughter may believe that there is no way to stop this kid, that trying to stop him will make him worse, etc. Unless she has very strong evidence of this (he is allowed to physically hurt, stalk or otherwise attack other kids) this probably isn't true.
Speaking of that, does your daughter know anything about this kid's other behavior? Is he just a mean loudmouth? Does he target others or just her? Does he physically hurt other kids? This is all stuff that can get brought to the school, and should be brought to the school if he's one of the organizers of more widespread bullying.
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posted by Frowner at 4:40 AM on January 26, 2024 [24 favorites]
Best answer: Former U.S. school principal here. You should be visiting the school in person every day and sitting in the main office waiting for the principal to speak to you every time this happens. (Logistically, I know this is not possible for parents). Make a daily appointment with the principals' admin so that you are in their calendar every day, reminding them that your daughter has a right to a safe public education. They will only take this as seriously as you make it, and you need to make this a BIG deal for the principal. Ask for a copy of the school's policy on bullying and use their own published language when talking to the principal. Schools today (depending on the state, and assuming this is a U.S. school) likely require some sort of paper trail for incidents of bullying, which are public. Ask for copies of the bullying incidents reported schoolwide. Put some fear into these school leaders. Email the principal every time it happens, naming that this is the nth time it's happened and the nth time you have reported it. Climb up this principal's ass and do not come out until it ends. The exact words used to bully her are irrelevant. Bullying only escalates when it isn't addressed. It's the school's problem to figure out how to make this stop, not yours or your daughter's.
If this isn't being dealt with and stopped at school, start contacting the Board of Ed members (assuming your school is in this kind of structure) and showing up to the public meetings to complain about the culture of bullying in your child's school and the principal's refusal to address it (and name the principal out loud in the public meeting!!!).
The bully's motivations and home life are also irrelevant to you and your child. The school needs to make this stop in school, period end of sentence.
I am speaking as a principal who took this very seriously. I am also speaking as a former child who was bullied mercilessly for a decade with no one caring to stop it. I am not being hyperbolic. My parents condoned my bullying by never trying to stop it. I'm not a parent so can't speak to how to help your daughter cope and manage this but I have tons to say about the school's response.
posted by archimago at 5:47 AM on January 26, 2024 [50 favorites]
If this isn't being dealt with and stopped at school, start contacting the Board of Ed members (assuming your school is in this kind of structure) and showing up to the public meetings to complain about the culture of bullying in your child's school and the principal's refusal to address it (and name the principal out loud in the public meeting!!!).
The bully's motivations and home life are also irrelevant to you and your child. The school needs to make this stop in school, period end of sentence.
I am speaking as a principal who took this very seriously. I am also speaking as a former child who was bullied mercilessly for a decade with no one caring to stop it. I am not being hyperbolic. My parents condoned my bullying by never trying to stop it. I'm not a parent so can't speak to how to help your daughter cope and manage this but I have tons to say about the school's response.
posted by archimago at 5:47 AM on January 26, 2024 [50 favorites]
Best answer: I don't know if this helps you wrap your head around this situation at all, but I think that beyond simple cruelty and marginalization, a major reason kids (especially boys) deploy sexually charged slurs / slang, is to show off to their friends. At least that was something of a hallmark of my childhood.
Kids at that age are beginning to wrap their heads around the idea of and desire to gain social power, and for them, sex and sexuality is still pretty arcane. So the bullies use other kids as props to demonstrate they know more in a weird attempt to elevate themselves above their peers.
posted by voiceofreason at 6:10 AM on January 26, 2024 [6 favorites]
Kids at that age are beginning to wrap their heads around the idea of and desire to gain social power, and for them, sex and sexuality is still pretty arcane. So the bullies use other kids as props to demonstrate they know more in a weird attempt to elevate themselves above their peers.
posted by voiceofreason at 6:10 AM on January 26, 2024 [6 favorites]
Best answer: So the bullies use other kids as props to demonstrate they know more in a weird attempt to elevate themselves above their peers.
IME, this type of bullying is something that boys do to impress other boys - it's a performance and it can easily turn into mobbing because they all want to outdo each other. Performing masculinity correctly upon the bodies of girls or marginalized boys is a big feature here. Again, not about some poor woobie who is suffering at home, not about sexual attraction to the child in question, just about trying to be the most manly.
The school should intervene because this type of thing spreads - boys learn from each other that they need to be masculine by abusing vulnerable others.
posted by Frowner at 6:23 AM on January 26, 2024 [29 favorites]
IME, this type of bullying is something that boys do to impress other boys - it's a performance and it can easily turn into mobbing because they all want to outdo each other. Performing masculinity correctly upon the bodies of girls or marginalized boys is a big feature here. Again, not about some poor woobie who is suffering at home, not about sexual attraction to the child in question, just about trying to be the most manly.
The school should intervene because this type of thing spreads - boys learn from each other that they need to be masculine by abusing vulnerable others.
posted by Frowner at 6:23 AM on January 26, 2024 [29 favorites]
Best answer: Call it out. Stop calling me names. Stop bullying me. Bullying is often a way to increase status/ strength/ fear. Name-calling is really unattractive. Longer term, ignoring it fiercely, maybe a disdainful look or shrug, works a lot of the time. Attention tells bullies they found their mark. The only thing bullies respect is strength.
posted by theora55 at 9:31 AM on January 26, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 9:31 AM on January 26, 2024 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Former bullied kid here, with an idea about how to handle it in the moment.
Something I eventually learned diffused bullies was a sarcastic, sassy comeback; if it turned the tables on the bully, even better. And the boy using the word "furry" is a great opener - it's likely that the kid doesn't completely understand what a furry is, he's just heard that it's vaguely sexually transgressive and weird.
So maybe she could try giving him a fake puzzled look and saying "Hang on, how do you know so much furries? You really like to talk about them, that's weird." It may not shut the kid up, but it may throw him enough to stop him temporarily - long enough for any other kid watching to say "hang on, yeah, how DOES he know about furries? That's weird."
Agreed that the larger problem is that your daughter has a bully in general. The words he's using aren't the point - he's just picked a word that he thinks will likely get a reaction. Hell, my brother sometimes used to pick on me by using ANY random word as an insult, just by putting a mocking spin on it (like, we'd be watching cartoons and someone would use the word "pinnacle" in a random ad, and he'd say, "EC, you're such a pinnacle"). The kid's use of "furry" right now is a good chance for your daughter to flip the script for the moment, but as an adult, your focus should be on the bullying itself, rather than the content of it, so to speak.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:41 AM on January 26, 2024 [5 favorites]
Something I eventually learned diffused bullies was a sarcastic, sassy comeback; if it turned the tables on the bully, even better. And the boy using the word "furry" is a great opener - it's likely that the kid doesn't completely understand what a furry is, he's just heard that it's vaguely sexually transgressive and weird.
So maybe she could try giving him a fake puzzled look and saying "Hang on, how do you know so much furries? You really like to talk about them, that's weird." It may not shut the kid up, but it may throw him enough to stop him temporarily - long enough for any other kid watching to say "hang on, yeah, how DOES he know about furries? That's weird."
Agreed that the larger problem is that your daughter has a bully in general. The words he's using aren't the point - he's just picked a word that he thinks will likely get a reaction. Hell, my brother sometimes used to pick on me by using ANY random word as an insult, just by putting a mocking spin on it (like, we'd be watching cartoons and someone would use the word "pinnacle" in a random ad, and he'd say, "EC, you're such a pinnacle"). The kid's use of "furry" right now is a good chance for your daughter to flip the script for the moment, but as an adult, your focus should be on the bullying itself, rather than the content of it, so to speak.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:41 AM on January 26, 2024 [5 favorites]
Please start a paper trail of when these events occurred, even if you aren't recording at the school documenting it at home. We failed to do this in elementary school, thinking the admin and teachers knew about it and were on it. Sometimes they were sometimes they weren't. The problem was then a lack of evidence of the pattern of behavior when my child tried to defend themselves and got into trouble. And we found that things escalated in middle school, where everyone's posturing, that's when I really wished I had had the paper trail from elementary school.
At my son's middle school the PE teacher encouraged my son to advocate for himself by filling out documentation anytime something with a particular student happened. I'm not sure that documentation would have happened necessarily if my son hadn't taken the initiative, and things never got so bad that we had to pull on it, so I can't say how well those papers were preserved etc.
TBH the bullying situation can get really difficult to navigate as a parent. For us it was a lot little things you wonder 'am I making too big a deal out of this' and then one day, something bigger/meaner. So when I felt like I couldn't do anything, I focused on trying to build/maintain my relationship with my child in a way so that he'd feel safe coming to me with something. A lot of times I'll ask them "what do you think about this", "is there something you want me to do", "are you venting", "do you want to do something about this" etc. I don't want him to shut down b/c he's afraid my response is going to make things worse.
The schools we've been at didn't seem to have very effective ways of addressing it, and in general seemed to loathe to discipline students. Our school offers a 'no contact contract', which supposedly then allows them stronger disciplinary actions when it's broken. Our issue with the contracts that were offered to us was that both students have to sign, they inherently imply there's some sort of personality conflict happening where the 2 students are equally involved. We found it very hard to ever feel like things were getting a satisfactory resolution, it felt like the school talked a great line but stalled on action/enforcement, hoping we'd or the problem would go away. I don't know how much of that was due to more pressing issues they had to deal with/overwhelmed with problems, or behind the scenes things they couldn't tell us about due to privacy laws, or just ineffectiveness but it always felt very meh.
posted by snowymorninblues at 10:44 AM on January 26, 2024
At my son's middle school the PE teacher encouraged my son to advocate for himself by filling out documentation anytime something with a particular student happened. I'm not sure that documentation would have happened necessarily if my son hadn't taken the initiative, and things never got so bad that we had to pull on it, so I can't say how well those papers were preserved etc.
TBH the bullying situation can get really difficult to navigate as a parent. For us it was a lot little things you wonder 'am I making too big a deal out of this' and then one day, something bigger/meaner. So when I felt like I couldn't do anything, I focused on trying to build/maintain my relationship with my child in a way so that he'd feel safe coming to me with something. A lot of times I'll ask them "what do you think about this", "is there something you want me to do", "are you venting", "do you want to do something about this" etc. I don't want him to shut down b/c he's afraid my response is going to make things worse.
The schools we've been at didn't seem to have very effective ways of addressing it, and in general seemed to loathe to discipline students. Our school offers a 'no contact contract', which supposedly then allows them stronger disciplinary actions when it's broken. Our issue with the contracts that were offered to us was that both students have to sign, they inherently imply there's some sort of personality conflict happening where the 2 students are equally involved. We found it very hard to ever feel like things were getting a satisfactory resolution, it felt like the school talked a great line but stalled on action/enforcement, hoping we'd or the problem would go away. I don't know how much of that was due to more pressing issues they had to deal with/overwhelmed with problems, or behind the scenes things they couldn't tell us about due to privacy laws, or just ineffectiveness but it always felt very meh.
posted by snowymorninblues at 10:44 AM on January 26, 2024
I second archimago. The only way to really solve a bully problem is to GET YOUR CHILD AWAY FROM THE BULLY. Demand that she switch classes. If the school won't do anything, consider homeschooling or doing anything you can to get her to get schooling elsewhere.
As for "furry," it doesn't super matter, he'd call her a bitch or a whore or ugly or fat or literally anything else too, probably.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:09 AM on January 26, 2024 [5 favorites]
As for "furry," it doesn't super matter, he'd call her a bitch or a whore or ugly or fat or literally anything else too, probably.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:09 AM on January 26, 2024 [5 favorites]
You've got a lot of great answers here already (and now I'm sort of wondering if we should change the site name to Bulliedfilter, as so many of us seem to have gone through this). Thank gods we're no longer in the "it just means he likes you!" era.
The bullying I received around the same age as your daughter was in the form of specific threats of violence, but I still think repeated harassment on this level is worth you demanding the school intervene. Even in the '70s this was considered appropriate action and I wasn't expected to handle it on my own, at least in the US.
And whatever the admin said/did to those kids made them stop in their tracks. I had been worried about retaliation for tattling or whatever, but it just didn't happen. HUGE hugs to you and your kid.
posted by queensissy at 3:41 PM on January 26, 2024 [3 favorites]
The bullying I received around the same age as your daughter was in the form of specific threats of violence, but I still think repeated harassment on this level is worth you demanding the school intervene. Even in the '70s this was considered appropriate action and I wasn't expected to handle it on my own, at least in the US.
And whatever the admin said/did to those kids made them stop in their tracks. I had been worried about retaliation for tattling or whatever, but it just didn't happen. HUGE hugs to you and your kid.
posted by queensissy at 3:41 PM on January 26, 2024 [3 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
In particular, that helped for taunts that veered into sexual harassment or sexual threats. The school took this stuff very seriously. At nine years old, there's a line of inquiry schools are interested in exploring early before small issues develop into serious ones—why is a nine year old aware of and talking about furries and can we address this quickly? In my kid's case, she was often called things like "gimp" and told she should respond to that name. I talked with one of the staff counselors about this and we agreed that the kid's parents needed to be made aware of this and there had to be some kind of accountability. It was eye openiing, because the parents of the other kid tried to defend it as "a word used in Pulp Fiction" and not intended to cause harm. But it didn't matter—the school made it clear it was unacceptable, and set a clear understanding for everyone involved that continued targeting of other students with that word or other sexually suggestive taunts would be accumulating toward disciplinary action. My kid wasn't comfortable with this at first, but she got much more confident over time jsut waltzing into the school's office to say "student X called me a sexually suggestive taunt and I want it recorded, you can call my dad and talk to Guidance Staffer Z about this is you need more information."
Hang in there, kids can be cruel but it's not always just a superficial thing. The kid who used the "gimp" taunt, for instance, very clearly suffered from a complicated home environment and we watched that happen over the remaining school years. I hope that they got a bit more assistance for having these early problem behaviors flagged, but a school can't make up for all of the damage a rocky home is causing.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 2:51 AM on January 26, 2024 [15 favorites]