AITA for telling my daughter to hit below the belt?

A Redditor recently shared a story about how she encouraged her daughter, who’s battling leukemia, to stand up to a bully at summer camp by hitting back with a harsh comment. The daughter, Becky, has faced cruel teasing from another girl at camp, leading her mother to arm her with some information to use as a “defense.” Now, the mom wonders if she went too far. Read the full story below to decide.

‘ AITA for telling my daughter to hit below the belt?’

Relevant background: My (43F) daughter Becky (10) has struggled with leukemia since she was 5 years old (finally nearing remission, we hope!!). As a side effect of the chemo, she lost her hair. She’s a bit self conscious (and found a wig to be very uncomfortable), but everyone at her school is quite supportive.

She usually wears a baseball hat or beanie. She’s never run into any b**lying because of this until now. My daughter wanted to go to a YMCA day camp this summer and her doctor cleared her. Of course, I signed her up. Unfortunately, there’s a clique of girls there that have been straight up vile.

My daughter came home crying the first day because the queen of this clique (we’ll call her Jenny) gave her the nickname ‘Lex’ (as in Lex Luthor; it’s comic book week) and wouldn’t stop when my daughter asked her to. I went to the counselor the next morning and pretty much asked wtf? He said that he talked with Jenny and the clique about it and they will stop.

They didn’t. It just got worse. They started a game of “steal Jenny’s hat and keep it away from her”. Counselor was some feckless teenage dude that did f**k all to stop this. My daughter wanted to try and stay in the camp because she was making friends there who actually stood up for her. I decided to arm her with a bit of secret “adult” information.

Jenny is the daughter of a couple going through a n**ty public divorce. I told my daughter that next tike Jenny harasses her, she should tell Jenny that she is the reason for her parents’ divorce and that they both want to get rid of her. Probably not true, but certainly a devastating insult to a tween.

This worked quite well. Becky hit Jenny with divorce slam yesterday, and it was super effective! Becky was beaming when I picked her up, Jenny was inconsolable, and the counselor looked like he had just come back from ‘Nam. He asked for a sit down with us and told me I shouldn’t encourage my daughter to insult other campers.

He said that Jenny was just stressed from the divorce and was misplacing her anger on Becky. I said that my daughter is not going to be a punching bag and I will continue to teach and encourage her to hit back.. AITA?

Take a look at the comments from fellow users:

shammy_dammy −  Jenny is just stressed from the divorce? And Becky isn’t…like…you know…STRESSED FROM CANCER?!?!?!

WillSayAnything −  He said that Jenny was just stressed from the divorce and was misplacing her anger on Becky.  F**k all that noise. Your daughter has cancer and she’s not going around being an ass to people. . NTA

Adventurous-Term5062 −  NTA. You asked the counselor to handle it. They didn’t, so you went to plan b.

Mental-Woodpecker300 −  Normally I wouldn’t be cool with nuclear warfare like that, but your daughter is recovering from something so intensive that if I were in your shoes I’d be biblical in my anger towards not just the situation in general but the counselor specifically.

You’re gonna tell me that I need to be more accommodating to a little girl that’s taking her anger over her parents divorce out on my child that’s fighting leukemia??

Oh hell no. Nope.  Either do your job or I’m going above you to whoever is in charge of your immature ass and going scorched earth. NTA certain circumstances warrant playing hardball.

Beginning_Cod9917 −  Noice. Sounds like the ‘counselor’ is next

zapthe −  My 5 year old son was being made fun of by a kid in daycare. My son’s name is Lucas and the kid kept calling him Mucus. I pointed out to my son that the kid picking on him was named Cooper, which rhymes with pooper… Pooper, I mean Cooper stopped picking on him really quickly. I felt a little bad about it, but you’re definitely NTA.

TaratronHex −  NTA. FAFO. I always think of kid bullies like that horrible Myrtle from Lilo and Stitch and how NO ONE f**king decks her one when she mouths off to a girl who lost both her damn parents. If Lilo had a streak of n**ty in her, she’d tell that ginger b**ch the reason her dad won’t ever come back is because she’s there, meanwhile Lilo’s parents can’t come back. Myrtle’s dad chooses not to be around her.

edit: the idea of “dont stoop to the level” doesn’t work on bullies. Don’t stoop, you f**king dig until you hit paydirt and make them eat it! There was a kid I remember from school who was probably on the spectrum, but no one knew the word autism yet, and she was often bullied.

Four or five girls against her, and they had the bad luck to run across her one day when a family friend came to pick her up from school and started taunting her about being u**y and friendless that even her parents wouldn’t pick her up.

Unfortunately for them, said family friend was 16/17 and honed his insult skills on Counterstrike without the racial part, and all of the bullies were crying when he was done insulting their looks, how they smelled, and that most of them probably only existed because their parents really wanted a boy and got stuck with another girl (which was the case for one girl). Nukes, rocks. Bullies don’t understand until they get the blast.

Simple_Inflation_449 −  I mean it’s definitely hurtful to tell a child that they are the reason their parents are divorcing but that also isn’t a reason to take out that hurt on another child. NTA

Astute_Primate −  NTA. Jenny fucked with the bull and got the horns. She picked on a literal pediatric cancer patient. Nothing excuses that. If we’ve learned nothing else from the past decade or so, it’s that going high when they go low doesn’t work. If you go high when they go low, they’ll keep going low because they know you won’t do s**t.

Sometimes, when they go low you’ve got to step on their neck and not let them back up of you want them to get the message. If She keeps it up, tell your daughter to say that at least her dad wants her 7 days a week. And if one of her parents gets in your face tell them it’s not your fault they’re cool with traumatizing their daughter over a little bit of new d**k/pussy.

Objective_Maximum669 −  I think this belongs on r/prorevenge than AITAH. Best wishes for your daughter’s remission!

Do you think the mom’s advice to “hit below the belt” was justified in this case, or could it lead to unintended consequences for both kids involved? How would you handle the situation if your child were being bullied? Share your thoughts and suggestions below!