Every child is a delight, a joy, a perfect diamond. They are perfect in every way from the moment of their birth until the moment they leave the nest, and even after.

Except when they’re not.

A few months ago, I sat in the car line waiting to pick up my 5-year-old son from kindergarten. My phone buzzed with a message from his teacher. And then another. And another.

My son had thrown blocks at a student. When confronted by the teacher, he yelled at her. Eventually, it escalated all the way into him punching one of the other students.

There are many messages parents dread. Our children’s safety is always the chief fear. School shootings are an unfortunate constant in American life. We worry that someone might bully our child. Had I received that call, that message would’ve been far easier for me to digest than this one. After all, I’d been bullied through much of school, and my son is like me, right?

I read the messages again. My son wasn’t bullied. He was the bully.

A sense of emptiness settled into my stomach. Not pure anger or sadness, but something between the two, coupled with a deep, deep sense of disappointment. 

The first D-word I had feared as a parent. Yes, I admit I felt disappointed.

And the only way to deal with it was the second D-word, one I’ve always struggled with: discipline.

All kids need discipline, of course. They need to be taught the rules and norms of society. They have to function in school, and not throw blocks or hit. My wife and I don’t believe in spanking. There are plenty of studies that prove — despite what earlier generations have done — striking children does not modify their behavior. We also found minimal success with timeouts and other traditional forms of discipline.

What then? What could we do?

Nurtured Heart Approach changes his life

The incident mentioned wasn’t isolated. In fact, we started hearing from his teacher at least once a week. We had meetings with the principal. We began to suspect the root of his problem was boredom. My son would practice multiplication, division, and even simple exponents in the car, before hopping out to a class whose full-year math curriculum involved counting to a hundred. But knowing the cause didn’t excuse the behavior. Again, that disappointment sank in. My son is brilliant, kind and such a wonderful person. How could we encourage him to choose kindness and compassion? How could we discipline him and avoid disappointment?

My aunt introduced us to “The Nurtured Heart Approach,” a radically different method of behavior modification. Developed by Howard Glasser, and codified in the book Transforming the Difficult Child, the Nurtured Heart Approach relies on three “stands.” The first stand is to not give any energy at all to negative behavior. Timeouts and other discipline often fail to truly transform highly energetic kids because they thrive on negative attention. The second stand awards TONS of positive energy to good behavior. This, even more than the first stand, was transformational for us.

I started noticing interactions between my son and daughter. They’d be happy and content until one would start to bug the other. At that moment, I’d intervene, throwing my energy into trying to resolve the conflict. Nurtured Heart Approach reversed this approach. I started praising the good interactions between my kids and joining them more thoroughly while they were content.

Then, when something went amiss, all I needed was the third stand: the “reset.”

At its heart, the reset is essentially a five-second timeout. It’s a pause where the energy is redirected. Think of Daniel Tiger’s song “Give a squeeze, nice and slow, take a deep breath … and let it go …” Same idea. Tell the kid who’s breaking a rule to reset, and pull all your attention away. That’s it. If they don’t reset, say it again. Might take a hundred resets, but that’s it — no punishments, no lectures about what they did wrong (dumping energy into the behavior you’re modifying). Instead, send energy back into what they’re doing right as soon as they start acting right again.

The above description of Nurtured Heart Approach is a boiled-down oversimplification, of course. It’s worth checking out the book, but be warned — it’s not easy. Not at all. Yet now, months later, the notes we get from the teacher are filled with praise for his behavior. The way he acts with his sister makes me smile.

We still have rough moments. These are the times when he needs to reset. And then we move forward. Because our son has learned that empathy and kindness and compassion are far more important to life than rule-breaking or aggression.

It’s OK, as a parent, to feel those moments of disappointment. It’s OK to recognize that discipline is part of parenting. Let that emotion sink into you and allow yourself to reset your own expectations.

Remember, your kid is still a delight, a joy, a perfect diamond. They are perfect in every way from the moment of their birth until the moment they leave the nest, and even after.

Because even diamonds need polishing. And that’s what parents are for.

Nurtured Heart Approach photo: © natali_mis /  Adobe Stock.

We were deep into a tickling session. My daughter, who is months away from being 3, had fully surrendered. Uncontrollable belly laughs. You know the type. There’s nothing quite like the innocent joy of a kid giggling from a tickled belly.

She was squirming and fighting, pushing my hand from her belly. So I went for her neck. She laughed more. I switched to her armpit. I was laughing. She was laughing. It was a beautiful daddy-daughter moment. After fits of giggles and screams, she said, “Stop, stop, stop.”

Game over.

I know she didn’t mean it. I knew shortly after she would ask me to tickle her again. But for her entire life, anytime I’ve touched her, as a game, or to change her clothes, or any other random reason, any time she says “stop,” I stop. Always.

Lessons in respect, consent from #MeToo movement

I wasn’t as aware of these moments with my first daughter. It was maybe five years ago, a couple years into her life, when the whole #MeToo movement went viral. Like most generic males, I was a bit skeptical. I was more prone to roll my eyes and shrug it off as a typical social media cause. Just a whole lot of noise and not a lot of substance.

Then women I knew started sharing their stories. Women way too close to me. Women who were strong and confident. Women I never imagined could ever be a victim. My typical sluggish and dense male mind began to open and accept reality.

The next time I was tickling my daughter, we had the same moment we always had. She was laughing. She said no. I didn’t stop. She said no again. I didn’t stop. “Daddy!” And I stopped. She looked at me.

“I really wanted you to stop that time,” she said. Flippantly, I replied, “OK, OK. No big deal.”

It took me a moment to realize it was a big deal.

From that moment forward, my policy was no means no. It didn’t matter what it was. If she said “no” in regard to me touching her, I stopped. Always.

When my son was born, I did the same. Boy or girl. Playing or not playing. No means no. The more I listened to their requests, the more it became clear how often I ignored their requests.

Teach ‘no means no‘ early for better people later

My hope is that I’m modeling a couple different things. First, I want it to be clear to my children that adults they love and trust will stop when they say stop. There’s no ambiguity there. I want them to know they have full agency of their bodies. Second, I want my children to see me respecting the boundaries they set for their own bodies. In this way, I hope they will learn they have control to give and deny consent over their bodies. Any adult who doesn’t respect that is an adult they don’t need in their lives. As they get older, I hope they grow to be adults who respect their partners and their peers in the same way.

I’m not suggesting all those fun moments with my kids are nefarious or damaging. I’m certain I’m traumatizing them in many other ways I’ve yet to perceive, but in this small way of respecting the playful “no,” I’m hoping I’m preparing them to respect the serious “No.”

I know the initial reaction to something like this may be a skeptical one. It’s hard to hear things we do in innocence could ever be distorted into something damaging, but our discomfort is no excuse for apathy. If we want a better world, we need to thoughtfully raise better people. I’ve written in the past about how small tweaks to our behavior can have massive benefits, and I believe this is another example.

I feel it important to note that if I tell my kids to go to bed, eat their dinner, or cease assaulting their siblings, and they say “no,” ain’t nobody respecting that “no.” Parents have boundaries, too.

The good news is we still have epic tickle fights, and the disruption to a solid belly tickle session is minor. There’s also another benefit to proactively working to limit our kid’s future emotional baggage: their therapists will have to work a little extra harder to find things to blame us for. There’s value in that.

‘No means no’ photo: ©Prostock-studio / Adobe Stock.

My son vaulted from school, grabbed my hand, and shouted, “Daddy, I had the BEST day EVER!” I was delighted to hear this. There had been some increasingly annoying issues at his new school, his excitement waning in the weeks since he had started.

“Awesome, bud. Why was it the best day ever?” I said, eager to hear stories of fun and friends.

“Because X wasn’t in school. No one pushed me or kicked me or anything.”

X is who we shall be calling The Bully.

X has been very physical with my son. Hitting. Kicking. Grabbing. Scratching. All the fun bullying stuff. To say this has been a challenge for me to deal with would be a gross understatement. I don’t feel quite old enough to bust out a “back in my day,” but I think I have no choice.

The old-school way to stop bullying

Back in my day, the public school environments I grew up in were pretty rough. I was small, nerdy and, of course, I had glasses (confession: all this is still true of me). In other words, an easy target for bullying. No surprise then: I was picked on for the bulk of my scholastic career. Bullied, attacked and assaulted. I also once stared down the barrel of a pistol and witnessed a small riot.

But one day in middle school I decided I would be a target no more. I fought back. I used my wit, my words, my speed (to run away after my wit and words got me in trouble), and a general complete lack of concern for my own well-being. These weren’t natural responses, but they were how I managed to dissuade the punk-ass bullies from messing with me. Please don’t get the impression I’m bragging of great conquests and masculine bravado. I just made things so annoying for the kids who messed with me that they stopped. Nonetheless, I was still scared every damn day I was in school.

So when my son came to me for weeks on end complaining about X’s bullying, I wanted to share some sage advice. These rational, wise words came rushing to my mind: “OK, when X hits you again, here’s what I want you to do. When you’re outside, find the biggest stick under the trees. Walk up to X and hit him as hard as you can with the stick. Don’t stop until he promises to never hit you again. If he hits you again, forget the stick and find a rock.”

Hey, those tactics worked for me in the wilds of Wilmington, Del. in the ’80s and ’90s. However, such Cro-Magnon techniques since have been frowned upon. Instead, I asked my son if he told the teacher.

Why? Why had I gotten so soft? Is the world emasculating men? Is this new generation weak? Have millennial teachers turned the world into a big, fluffy safe space? Johnny Lawrence and Eagle Fang would be ashamed I was unwilling to encourage my son to strike first and strike hard. No mercy!

Truth is, the world has progressed and I’ve grown up. Sometimes, it’s a little annoying.

A little empathy, a little kindness, a lot of patience

It started with my wife saying she had seen X, and it seemed like he may have some developmental challenges. I rolled my eyes.

“I think that kid is a douche bag,” I said. My wife made it clear I wasn’t being helpful.

Over time we spoke with X’s parents after other parents in the school started complaining about X’s bullying ways. After our chat, I had to do something really, really annoying: Have empathy.

What must it feel like to have an entire grade’s worth of parents in a private school angry, upset and eager for your kid to be kicked out? How hard must it be to come to parent events, knowing most of the other parents see you as a failure and your kid as nothing more than a violent monster? You’d feel like you were failing. Failing as a person. Failing as a parent. Perhaps worst of all, failing your kid. It has to be brutal.

I’d like to say X’s parents have become my friends, and we now work together to solve our joint problem. Well, life doesn’t work that way. It is clear they are trying, though. Whether we agree on their tactics, we know they are earnestly doing something, and things seem to be slowly improving. And I mean REAL slowly.

Lately the world seems quick to escalate every issue into a binary encounter between good and evil. One side is a paragon of morality with all the answers, and the other drinks the blood of infants and is beyond salvation. Nuance has been lost, empathy has been discarded, and indignant conflict over every minor issue seems inevitable.

I could’ve surrendered to this feeling when dealing with X bullying my son. I could’ve spit fire and venom into my son’s ear, and led him down a path of violent reply. Instead, I went a different route. I chose peace and kindness. Not because I’m soft, but because I desire to live in a world of peace and kindness. The only way this happens is if we all raise our children to be peaceful and kind.

Although if X goes back to his previous violent behavior, I’d consider bringing back the sticks.

Bullying photo: ©InsideCreativeHouse / Adobe Stock.

She had me. I knew it. She knew it. Her logical argument had cleverly rendered my previous protests moot. After trying my best to use logic and reason to persuade her, using each trick I could think of, even bribery, she still had me. Now, there was really nothing left to do but apologize, retreat and admit I was wrong.

I opened my mouth: Nope. Couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t relent and admit I was wrong and her argument stronger than mine. This wasn’t about a female beating a male. This wasn’t the manifestation of fragile pride and ego. This was something more.

This was a 6-year-old proving me wrong.

I suppose as a proud dad, I should be filled with pride when my 6-year-old daughter is able to successfully debate me, but I’m not. I find myself just man enough to admit I get a little petty when she is right and I’m wrong. I’m not particularly proud of this reality, but kids have a unique way of exposing our weaknesses and failures. When my daughter is able to reveal an unfair decision I’ve made, or successfully argue why she should be allowed to do something after I told her she couldn’t, my first instinct is to never give in. It’s innate. It feels compulsive. No matter how wrong I am, I struggle to admit I’m wrong.

I take some solace knowing I am not alone with this affliction. No one is eager to admit they are wrong, but the pervasive tendency to resist surrender, even once the argument has clearly been lost, has become a blight on polite society. How can we as parents tackle a failing of all humanity? All we have to do is something we currently do all the time: be wrong.

Wrong-headed about not ‘fessing up

Today my youngest, who still months away from being 3, woke up from her nap prematurely. I decided since she was awake, she should eat lunch with the rest of us. She resisted. In fact, she resisted so strongly, my wife immerged from her home office to ask me if I needed help. It was good timing. I had lost control of the situation, and I was even close to losing my temper. Why? Because I refused to accept an alternate view point. I refused to admit I was wrong.

It’s certainly not natural to let a 2-year-old be in charge. I’m a big believer that the parents are always in charge, but that doesn’t mean their decisions are always right. In this situation, it was foolish of me to try and force my daughter to eat after she woke up way too early from her nap. I’ve been doing this long enough to know how illogical that is, but it didn’t matter. I said eat. She should eat. And so we went to war. She, pushing her plate of food away. Me, grabbing the plate and slamming it back down in front of her shouting, “Eat!” Yeah … real pro parenting move there. All I had to do was pause, think about the situation, and admit I was wrong.

Parents aren’t good at admitting they are wrong, but I think it’s something we need to do more often. I wonder the long term, cumulative effect of parents raising children in homes where those who are wrong admit they are wrong. Imagine if kids were raised to relent in the face of reason, wisdom and facts? How pliable would minds become? Would dogma be defeated? Maybe indoctrination would become less prevalent? Would weak minds and shallow arguments grow silent? 

We can hope.

The counterintuitive ideas are often hard to accept, but the quest to be right can only be satisfied once someone has the courage to admit they are wrong. You can trust me, because I’m wrong a lot.

Well, except this time. This time, I’m completely right.

Photo: © marinzolich / Adobe Stock.

Hey, my teenage sons — and friendly others — you might remember that I’ve been offering advice to you — my boys, not the others — instead of talking about what you’re up to as I did for so many years. Honestly, I thought it would be easy to give advice and drop wisdom bombs. You know what? It ain’t.

Before I get started, though, let me tell you a quick story.

Since right around the time you boys were born, 15 or so years ago, this same guy in the deli at our local grocery store has been slicing our ham and salami and bagging up fried chicken for us. His name is Neil, and he recently retired. I saw him the other day at a convenience store where we were both getting coffee. When he recognized me, he smiled and shook my hand warmly and said, “Hey, it’s Super Nice Guy!”

I was a little take aback, but who doesn’t like a nickname — truth be told, I always thought of him as Neil the Chicken Guy. I smiled and told him I always appreciated what he did for us and mentioned that he always gave me a couple of more pieces of chicken than I ordered. He said he was glad to do it. Neil also said he thought I was the kindest customer he had and that he enjoyed talking baseball with me and watching the boys grow up. I made an impact on this guy just by being nice to him, which is sadly rare way to treat a retail employee.

Just by being nice.

So, I guess that’s my advice for you this time is: Be nice. Good advice, right? Well, yes, I guess so. But, what does that even mean?

As parents, we say “be nice” all the time. I looked the word “nice” up: pleasant: agreeable; satisfactory. Sort of a generic entry there, don’tcha think?

Be good. Be kind. Be safe. Be nice.

I’ve been saying these things to you since before you could talk. So much so, in fact, that it begins to mean nothing. I wonder if they even mean anything to you anymore. We never define exactly what entails “being nice” or any of the other words we so casually offer as you go out the door. Perhaps, they’re only platitudes given up as much for ourselves as for you, as though I’m covering my own ass by telling you these things. You know, “I told him to be nice, officer. It’s out of my hands now.”

I notice, however, that there is a consistency here in all those trite directives I’ve been offering, but not where you’d expect it. It’s that first word, “be.”

Man, that’s a complicated word. But, it is a verb and that helps. I understand verbs.

The word “love,” for instance, is both a verb and a noun. I’ve never been able to pin it down as a noun. It’s one of those that is different to every person and in every case. But, as a verb, it is more definite, more actionable.

Maybe that’s what we mean when we say “be nice” or any of the others. The focus is not necessarily on the amorphous noun but on that little word in front. I am asking you to become nice, occupy nice, live in nice. And, you know what, I see you do it.

I’ve watched you be nice so many times over the years. A hand offered to help a player up on the soccer pitch. An encouraging word given to a scared friend or frustrated brother. An unsolicited hug for me or your mother. I’ve witnessed you being respectful to your teachers. I’ve seen you being kind to your grandparents. I’ve seen you be patient with younger kids, watched you be safe on a playground.

The only way we can see these nouns like love and honor and respect and integrity is when they are acted out in front of us. Listen, boys: it’s easy to see the meanness and baseness and discourtesy of this world we live in. Just turn on your phone or your television. It seems nearly every show or movie depends on some unsavory elements to move forward — some are just devoted to being mean or showing cruelty and disrespect. And the news so often just shows us the bad.

But, and I truly believe this, it is just as easy, if not easier, to see kindness and decency and niceties and so much more.

Integrity flies by in the cab of the firetruck as it screams by our house from the station around the corner. Courage is made real in the intent and decency of medical professionals. Honor is there in the hearts of our teachers. Cashiers and servers, cops and clergy, roofers and landscapers, “chicken guys,” will all respond in kind when offered kindness. I’ve seen it over and over in my life. You will, too, you’ve just got to look for it.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to revise my advice today. “Be nice” is too vague to be helpful. I’d say just “be” might be enough.

Be nice, be kind, be helpful and courageous and wild and playful and hopeful, just and right. Be love, be integrity, be honor and decency and respect.

Let them occupy you. Let them be in you, and I believe they are. I believe they are in all of us. Be the things you want in others, be toward them as you’d have them be to you.

Just be.

Be yourselves.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bill Peebles left a 30-year career in the restaurant business to become a stay-at-home dad to twin boys. He writes a blog, I Hope I Win a Toaster, that makes little sense. He coaches sometimes, volunteers at the schools, plays guitar, and is a damn good homemaker. He believes in hope, dreams, and love … but not computers.

Photo: © Jette Rasmussen / Adobe Stock.

Editor’s Note: October is National Bullying Prevention Month. According to the Stomp Out Bullying organization, one in four U.S. students say they have been bullied and 5.4 million kids stay home from school on any given day due to a fear of being bullied.

A boy was bullied yesterday. I know, I know, a million or more boys — and girls — were bullied yesterday. But yesterday it was one boy, a specific boy, a boy I know, a boy I like.

I went with my two boys to pick him up for practice, his parents both work and the practices were bumped up to five recently to accommodate the earlier darkness. His neighborhood is, well, not upscale. There are no three-car garages, more likely there are late model cars on jacks or cinder blocks waiting for new rotors or brake pads. There are no manicured yards or potted mums or sculpted yews. It is a working-class area of small ranches and carports and little yards and big trees bumping up the sidewalks and staining them with mulberries and crab apples.

I drove up and there he was: sitting in the dusty, brown grass, knees scrunched up to his chest which was racked with sobs. Tears stained his dirty face, his usually clear blue eyes were red and his sleeve was wet with snot and tears. He looked small and hurt and confused and oh, so very sad.

A boy was bullied yesterday.

I parked my truck and surveyed the scene. Four boys stood off in a yard next to his to my left and down the sidewalk to my right another boy, a bigger boy, an older boy, stood looking smug and, well, prickish. I got out and walked up to my little friend. I knelt down by him and asked him what was wrong. A fusillade of anger and pain and hate and hurt was hurled my way. If you’ve ever heard a 10-year-old boy try to speak through tears of injustice and hurt you’ll know I didn’t understand the details, but … I got the gist of it.

A boy was bullied yesterday.

I pieced together the story. A football, a taunting older boy who wouldn’t give it back, keep-away gone wrong. When the bigger boy got the ball taken from him, in anger and spite, he threw this little boy’s water bottle into the street where it broke and shattered and spilled and still lay in the gutter just behind me. The water bottle had his last name written on it. It was a nice big red plastic jug with a handle and a screw-on top with a flip-up sippy thing on it and he was proud of it.

A boy was bullied yesterday.

I went to get the bottle, hoping I might salvage it somehow. He told me not to bother, that it was all “fucked up” now. I gave him the f-word, he deserved it, he needed it. The four boys came toward me, trying, I think, to offer the support they had not given before because the older boy still stood watching down a ways. They all talked at once, hoping to collectively explain what had happened, how it had happened and why they’d let it happen.

I knew one of the boys. I’d coached him for a couple of years in baseball, and recognized the other three from the years I’d volunteered at the elementary school.

“There was nothing we could do, Mr. Peebles,” someone said.

I asked  then why was this  boy crying alone in his front yard while they watched on. They told me they didn’t want to get in trouble with “him.”

A boy was bullied yesterday.

“Him” was slowly working his way toward the scene. I looked at that older boy with a glare that would have burned Satan. I looked like a hard-ass with a long gray beard and a bandanna on my head, and I looked right into that boy. And, he was scared. He realized that here was someone who could bully him.

“Did you do that?” I asked, pointing at the water jug. He said he did and began to justify what he’d done, something about it being his ball and …

“Why? Why would you damage someone’s stuff? Why would you hurt someone like that?”

And then I said something I shouldn’t have said, but I did anyway, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

His lower lip began to quiver a little. I wanted him to cry. I wanted to break something important to him. I wanted him to hurt.

I knew that was wrong so I drew in a deep breath, I got right down into his face. “You don’t get to break people’s things, son. It’s not something people do. It’s not something I’d do,” I said. “It’s mean and stupid and that’s not what men are.”

I turned to my son’s’ teammate and said let’s get going. He said he didn’t want to go and ran into his house and slammed the door.

A boy got bullied yesterday.

I stared down the older boy. “You proud of yourself?” I asked him angrily.

“No, sir,” he mumbled. He knew he didn’t have the one thing he needed, perhaps the one thing he never gets, perhaps the very thing he longs for at night when he cries himself to sleep — my respect, anyone’s respect, self-respect.

“Caps,” I said to the boy I’d coached using his nickname, “you’re a good boy, I know that and you know that. Your Mom and Dad know that. Don’t just stand by and do nothing. I can’t tell you to fight or stand up for others. But, if that boy is your friend,” I gestured to the slammed door, “at least sit with him when he is hurting. At least do that …”

“I know Mr. Peebles, I’m sorry.”

I considered trying to get my friend to go to practice, but I knew I couldn’t. He was embarrassed and mad and ashamed and … well, so was I.

A boy was bullied yesterday. A sweet little boy who has trouble saying his r’s. A funny little boy with crazy blonde hair and yellow soccer shoes and a Star Wars watch and a vulnerable heart and a beautiful soul which was shattered like a drinking jug in a gutter by a boy who thinks that is all right.

So often we think of bullying in broad sweeping statements and treat it like a noun, a thing, a syndrome. “Bully” is a verb, an action. It is something that happens to someone. It’s happened to me, it’s happened to most everyone I know. It can only be addressed with action.

You may have noticed that, besides the names, I put a of lot details in this story. We need those details, details make it personal, details make it hurt more, details make the inherent injustice of it all the more real, all the more hurtful.

On the way to practice my boys were uncharacteristically quiet. They didn’t talk or argue or punch or complain. It was a loud silence. I could feel them thinking about it, taking in all that they’d seen and heard, looking out their respective windows and looking into their collective future, a future where there would be two boys, two men, two souls who knew what ugliness bullying can bring.

Talk to your kids about bullying.  Don’t use broad, sweeping generalizations, though. Be specific, use details, tell them the stories of your youth.

A boy was bullied yesterday and so were millions of others.

Change that. I beg of you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bill Peebles left a 30-year career in the restaurant business to become a stay-at-home dad to twin boys. He writes a blog, I Hope I Win a Toaster, (where a version of this first appeared) that makes little sense. He coaches sometimes, volunteers at the schools, plays guitar, and is a damn good homemaker. He believes in hope, dreams, and love … but not computers.

Bullied photo by trix0r on Foter.com / CC BY

Scrolling through my Facebook feed the other day, I found a post that made me both incensed and sad:

Today my 7 yr old nephew was bullied by an adult male member of our family because he has a baby doll. He was called a freak, snide remarks were said to his face, and he was asked how many times he has been in first grade. He was made to feel like he was somehow less of a boy and human being because he has a doll … 

The Christmas before he got his baby sister, my ALL-BOY rough & tumble, monster truck loving, camo wearing, hyper masculine, nephew asked for a doll for Christmas. He immediately named it Ben, put his baby boy clothes on it, and has been its “Dad” ever since. He took care of Ben just like he saw his baby sister being cared for. Ben rides in his dump trucks, helps him do yard work, and they pretend to hunt together.

The most bittersweet part is that my nephew’s father has been in jail most of his life. He longs to grow up and be a present Daddy because he doesn’t HAVE his Daddy. Until today he thought wanting to be a Dad was acceptable until a grown man told him that practicing to be a dad makes him weird.

What in the world?!?

Few people have problems these days with girls playing with old-school “boy toys” like trucks, Legos or footballs. On the other hand, many of these same people still have issues with the boys and “girl toys”?

Boys playing with dolls is a good thing

How do we expect men to become active and engaged dads if boys are still teased for playing with baby dolls? How do we expect discrimination and gender stereotypes against females to disappear if we still reinforce those macho, stoic roles for males? 

If we believe dads are as important as moms when it comes to parenting then we need to give future dads, not just future moms, the opportunity to practice caring for a little one. Boys playing with dolls helps them break the outdated view of a “man’s role” by teaching them responsibility, nurturing and even making them more open-minded as adults.

Still, I struggled to think of how to respond. I wanted to affirm her nephew’s instincts to care for baby doll, Ben.

While I thought, other comments started piling up on the thread, fast and furious.

Most were like this one:

My son had a doll when he was little. Carried it all over the place. He is a rough and tumble 12 year old now. Who loves babies and will help babysit his cousins all the time. He was teased about the doll and I would put people in their place. Screw ‘em all! Baby dolls don’t do anything for boys except make them more caring.”

In all, more than 100 supportive comments were made, many featuring photos of the writer’s son or nephew and his favorite baby doll.

The next day an update appeared:

To everyone who commented to support my nephew yesterday & today, he and Ben drew a thank you picture for you… And a huge thank you from me. The look of joy in his eyes as I read him your comments and showed him pictures of your boys and partners with their dolls was priceless. He is proud of Ben again and said he is excited that other boys play “practice Daddy” too. So, thank you for helping to give hope back to my nephew. You all are amazing.”

And now I had an idea for my response.

Here’s what I posted on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram:

Every night we sing our son to sleep. It’s always Twinkle Twinkle and the ABCs. So naturally, when we gave him a baby doll he wanted to sing his baby to sleep and when his little brother was born, his first instinct when holding him was to sing him the ABCs.