[lostalex]

Originally Posted by Ammi

'I hope that Max won’t get teased when he’s older. But part of what we are trying to do with Max is to instil such a sense of confidence, and a sense of who he is, that he won’t care what anyone else thinks.’


..that to me seems a contradiction because I can see that Max will almost certainly get teased and it’s very difficult to instil confidence in a child who is being teased, when we’re very young ‘fitting in’ is very important to us..it’s their decision of course but I really wonder if they’re thinking it all through and whether it really is in the best interests for Max or just something they want to try out...I’m really not sure about this at all..I think as people we tend to associate things with memories/good experiences/bad experiences etc and if Max gets badly teased because of his parent’s decision to do this and that makes him terribly unhappy, then rather than it help him to grow up to not have prejudices and intolerances etc, it could actually do the exact opposite because cross-dressing etc could evoke painful memories and unhappiness...?...hopefully we get to a stage in our lives when we don't care what anyone else thinks, but that stage is not when we're a young child...just playing devil’s advocate...

Teaching a child that they should repress themselves just so they don't get bullied is horrible though.

We should be trying to alter the behavior of the bullies, not the behavior of the kids that are being bullied.

Don't you agree?