A quick note on school teasing
Feb. 6th, 2026 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
perelynnThat day, Aleron came home very upset and frustrated. He was being teased at school. There is a girl he has been friends with since kindergarten. Now other kids are shipping them together and teasing Aleron about it.
I left the “figure this out” part to Victor. He’s good at this kind of thing.
Two hours later, they stopped talking, and I asked Victor for a summary.
“The thing with teasing,” Victor said, “is that you need to take the fun out of it for people. Specifically in Aleron’s case, the fun is clearly watching him squirm and feel uncomfortable. So one way to react is to lean into it and take it over the top. Like, ‘Oh yes, I’ve already booked all the restaurants for our dates!’ or ‘Oh yes, I’ve emptied all the flower shops.’”
“Or running up to the girl and showering her with attention?” I suggested.
“No, no, no,” Victor said. “That would make it uncomfortable for the girl. The teaser is the one who should experience the discomfort - or at least lose interest in the teasing. In Aleron’s case, it looks like the teasing comes from only one person after school. If he doesn’t cross paths with this person, the problem doesn’t manifest.”
“Oh, that makes it easier,” I said.
“Of course, there are cases when people get their kicks simply from mockery,” Victor said, “especially if there are several of them. In that case, it’s really important to lean in in a way that hands the discomfort back to them. Like if they call you a shittypants and you reply, ‘And I sat on all your lunchboxes.’ And the more they call you a shittypants, the more they sign up to the idea that their lunchboxes are now very shitty.”
“It requires quick thinking,” I said. “It’s not easy to instantly come up with a comeback like that.”
“Well, yes,” Victor agreed. “But you only need to come up with it once. Once you have it, it’s reusable. And with practice, you get better at it.”
Aleron has calmed down for now and hasn’t brought the issue up again so far. We'll see how it goes.
I left the “figure this out” part to Victor. He’s good at this kind of thing.
Two hours later, they stopped talking, and I asked Victor for a summary.
“The thing with teasing,” Victor said, “is that you need to take the fun out of it for people. Specifically in Aleron’s case, the fun is clearly watching him squirm and feel uncomfortable. So one way to react is to lean into it and take it over the top. Like, ‘Oh yes, I’ve already booked all the restaurants for our dates!’ or ‘Oh yes, I’ve emptied all the flower shops.’”
“Or running up to the girl and showering her with attention?” I suggested.
“No, no, no,” Victor said. “That would make it uncomfortable for the girl. The teaser is the one who should experience the discomfort - or at least lose interest in the teasing. In Aleron’s case, it looks like the teasing comes from only one person after school. If he doesn’t cross paths with this person, the problem doesn’t manifest.”
“Oh, that makes it easier,” I said.
“Of course, there are cases when people get their kicks simply from mockery,” Victor said, “especially if there are several of them. In that case, it’s really important to lean in in a way that hands the discomfort back to them. Like if they call you a shittypants and you reply, ‘And I sat on all your lunchboxes.’ And the more they call you a shittypants, the more they sign up to the idea that their lunchboxes are now very shitty.”
“It requires quick thinking,” I said. “It’s not easy to instantly come up with a comeback like that.”
“Well, yes,” Victor agreed. “But you only need to come up with it once. Once you have it, it’s reusable. And with practice, you get better at it.”
Aleron has calmed down for now and hasn’t brought the issue up again so far. We'll see how it goes.
