This Mom Warns Parents Not To Tell Girls They're Being Teased Because Boys Secretly Like Them

Parents who want to break generational trauma and untruths, listen up! It’s time for a refresher on one of the oldest (and most false) parent phrases that we’ve been telling kids for years — “They tease you because they like you!”

Nope. Absolutely not.

Parents need to be very careful about how they frame situations surrounding bullying and teasing amongst children because you can be damn sure they will take whatever they hear with them into adulthood.

TikTok user @jfabfindingauthenticity posted a now-viral video, sharing a moment between herself, her daughter, and her own mom where she had to step in and break some toxic generational chains surrounding this topic.

“I picked my eight-year-old daughter up from art camp today. She shared with me that there's been a boy at the camp that's been bullying her all week. So, she said today that he was painting and he had hand paint all over his hands. When the teacher asked him to go to the bathroom to wash his hands, he walked up to my daughter and rubbed his hands all over her hair. He then gave her the loser sign and stuck his tongue out at her,” the OP shared.

She handled the situation accordingly. She and her daughter talked it out and all seemed to be okay.

Later that day, the OP says her daughter wanted to share the story about the boy from art camp with her grandma (the OP’s mom).

“So my mom says, ‘Do you know why he did that?’ And my daughter says, ‘Why?’ And my mom says with a big smile, ‘Because he likes you.’”

That’s when the OP immediately stepped and righted this wrong.

“I immediately cut her off. I said, ‘No! We are not teaching my eight-year-old daughter that when a boy treats you like sh*t, it means that he likes you,’” she recalled.

“She is not learning that garbage. And then I launched into the real reason why kids bully. He feels unseen at home in some capacity, and he's internalized that. He doesn't like himself very much. So he needs to make other people feel bad about themselves so he feels better.”

“This is the same reason why grown-ups are abusive. They don't like themselves, and they feel entitled to take it out on you. It's not because they like you. In fact, it has nothing to do with you,” she concluded.

“Be careful about what nonsense you're conditioning your children to accept,” she wrote in the caption of the video.

After her video gained traction, several TikTok users commented and thanked her for reiterating that “abuse is not affection.”

“THANK YOU! Everyone needs to be teaching their children that abuse is NOT affection,” one user wrote.

“I hated being told that when I was a child. It is so dismissive,” another said.

One user commented, “So glad you are advocating for your daughter — and having tough conversations with your mom. Hopefully, she will think about what you said and start to connect the dots. 🥰”

We need to teach our children their worth. That starts at home with parents who teach their kids that teasing, unwanted physical touch, verbal insults, or anything else that makes them feel less than is not (in any way, shape, or form!) a way of expressing love!