Mom Confronts Her Son’s Bully and Posts It on TikTok—Would You Have Done the Same?

The viral video shows the young girl holding her lunch tray as the mother tells her to stop bullying her son. While some parents support the mom, others say it shouldn't have been posted online.

A mom confronted a bully on behalf of her child and posted the encounter on TikTok, dredging up some big-time feelings on all sides. I will describe the video but not post it (we’ll get to why shortly).

In the video, which Mom deleted but then reposted, she approaches the child in the elementary school’s cafeteria. “I’m [name withheld’s] mom,” she says. “He’s been telling me that you’ve been bullying him, and I’d like to ask you to stop.”

The text overlay reads, “Some may not agree with my approach, but I put an end to it, and that’s all that matters. It takes a village, and parents need to end this era of entitlement.”

“OK, he told me that you were telling people that he was gay,” the mother says. “Do not mess with my son. Do you understand me?”

Gay should never be used as a slur—teach your children to be kind. Reinforce this if you learn they’ve messed up (school officials should also step in). It certainly takes a village to end homophobia.

The child’s face isn’t shown, but the rest of their body is. She responds, “Yes, ma’am.”

Mom ends the encounter by saying she’ll go to the parents if the bullying continues.

Related: How To Deal With Bullying in Schools

Was the Mom Right in Confronting the Alleged Bully?

The mother was calm, cool, and collected during it all—I’ll give her that. But people had so many thoughts on the approach that she ended up addressing them in a pair of follow-up videos.

For example, why didn’t she go right to the other child's parents? "If I could have talked to the parents, I would have talked to the parents,” the Mom says. “The teacher wasn’t allowed to give me the child’s information.”

But her son told her who the child was, and apparently, the child had bullied other kids, too. Her mother reportedly already knew about the bullying, according to other parents. “A lot of times in those situations, the [kids] learn that behavior from their parents,” she said.

Others felt Mom should’ve let the kids handle it.

“The fact that this was a little girl…complicated it,” Mom responds. “My son knows better than to mistreat little girls. He is not going to put his hands on a little girl [or call her a name].”

OK—let’s stop here for a second. You don’t need to handle bullying by putting your hands on someone or calling them a name, and boys can use their words to tell girls to “stop” and “you hurt my feelings.” I’m not a child psychologist, but this helps set the foundation for consent.

But why record it?

“I did it as a form of protection,” the mom says, adding she didn’t want the child exaggerating anything that got said. She also clarified that she didn’t show the girl's face because she was a minor.

Hot Take: Hard Pass, Mom

Mom’s comments about the child being a minor leads me to my major problem with the video. I do not doubt that this mother’s instincts took over, and she wanted to help her son. As a mom, I know all about those instincts and the desire to do anything to protect your child. I don’t support kids calling other kids gay—full stop.

But I also don’t support adults putting kids on blast in an already toxic social media environment—one that the U.S. Surgeon General reports is to blame for the youth mental health crisis. Bringing an end to bullying and its effect on your child is important, but not all that matters.

While entitlement isn’t always the best trait, you can work on “putting an end” to that without posting a video of a minor without their consent. Frankly, the act of posting the video for the literal world to see and lambast this child feels like a form of bullying, too, and it’s certainly not going to role model responsible social media behavior. Believe it or not, you can handle things offline.

Related: 4 Types of Bullying Parents Should Know About

In another follow-up video, the creator posted that the child’s mother is trying to get her banned from school. “I’d much rather have her call me,” the mom says.

She also said people found her workplace number and are trying to get her fired. “If you can find the number for my place of business, you can also find my number and call me yourself,” she says. “That’s selfish.”

This is all rather rich for someone who did a bunch of verbal gymnastics to explain why she didn’t call the other child's parents in the first place.

So now, the original poster is filing a complaint with the superintendent—hey, fair enough. Bullying and slurs aren’t OK. “People are saying that I should’ve done that from the beginning,” the mom says. “Perhaps I should have. But, since I told her to leave my son alone, she has…it worked.”

Again, it’s not that confronting the child was wrong per se. It’s posting it on social media that I have an issue with. And just because something was successful doesn’t make it right. In sports, a foul might stop someone from scoring, but you’ll still (hopefully) get whistled for it.

“I apologize for putting your child on blast like that, but I was hoping you would reach out to me,” she says in the closing to her second (and last, according to her) video on the matter. “We will both do what we have to do.”

I personally learned what not to do.

Related: I'm a Teenager Who Was Bullied: Here's What Bullying Among Teens Looks Like Today

For more Parents news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on Parents.