Photo: TikTok
He wouldn't allow his son to be a bully.
By Nia Tipton — Written on Mar 21, 2023
After hearing that his son had bullied another one of his classmates, a father concocted a genius way for the young boy to apologize.
In a TikTok video, Patrick Forseth explained that his 9-year-old son, Lincoln, had gotten in trouble at school for pulling a prank that ended up humiliating one of his classmates. As a solution, Forseth told his son he had to come up with a way to apologize.
The dad told his son to go back to school and apologize after embarrassing his classmate.
"So, I got an email a few days ago from my 9-year-old son's teacher that he had done a 'prank' to a fellow classmate and it ended up embarrassing the classmate and hurt his feelings," Forseth began his video.
After receiving that notice from his son's teacher, Forseth didn't think twice about labeling what his son had done as bullying.
He pointed out that he "doesn't care" who it is, but "if you do something to somebody that you know has the potential end result of them being embarrassed in front of a class or hurt, you're bullying."
Forseth sat his son down, and the two of them had a long talk about the incident, and while he also punished him for it, he made sure that his son knew how damaging things like that can be to another person.
On top of that, he "encouraged" his son to go back to school and "find a way to make it right" between him and the classmate that he had hurt by pulling the prank.
"I demanded nothing out of him. I demanded no apology, I demanded no apology to the teacher. I told him that we have the opportunity to go back and make things right," he admitted. "We can't take things back, but we can try to correct things and look for forgiveness."
His son immediately went back to school, talked to the other boy, and found out about some of the things that he likes. During their conversation, Lincoln learned that the other boy liked Pokémon.
"So, Lincoln had two really cool gold Pokémon cards he loved. He came home and got those and he had this little case to put them in."
Forseth continued, saying that his son decided to clean his Pokémon case and give the other boy his two Pokémon cards.
His son shared that his classmate appreciated receiving the Pokémon cards.
After going to school and giving the other boy the cards, Lincoln came back home and told his father that his classmate really appreciated the gesture.
When asked how his classmate reacted, Lincoln said that "he hugged me and said thank you."
Forseth acknowledged that while he's far from a "perfect parent," he wanted to pass on advice to other parents about "just talking to your kids."
"Let's try to avoid just the swat on the butt [and] send them to their room. Doesn't teach them anything," he said. "What teaches them things is having them figure out how to resolve the problem and how to make things right."
"That's what they're actually going to face in the real world once they move out of our nests."
Alison Kennedy, Ed. S, a school psychologist, explained to Fatherly that parents should actively be teaching their children how to problem-solve can actively help the relationships they develop in the future.
"As they start to get older and older, through elementary school and middle school and even high school, kids suffer from this learned helplessness, and any problem they encounter they assume most of the time that a parent is going to swoop in and solve.”
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics.