What to teach your kid when a Jewish classmate is targeted

Quick answer: Tell your kid, ahead of time, that picking on someone for being Jewish is wrong and that staying quiet helps the bully. Give them one short sentence to say, one thing to do (sit with the kid), and one adult to tell. Then practice it once at the kitchen table.

Do it before it happens

Nobody finds the right words in the moment. A twelve-year-old watching a boy get called "Jew" as an insult, or watching someone toss pennies at his feet, has about three seconds before the laugh arrives. If he hasn't rehearsed, he'll laugh too. Or he'll look at his shoes. Neither makes him a bad kid. It makes him an unprepared one.

So have the conversation on a calm night, not after the bad day. Keep it plain. Some kids at school say ugly things about Jewish people. Some are repeating what they saw online, and some know exactly what they're doing. It's wrong either way, and if you see it, you don't join in and you don't leave the kid alone with it.

Ask your child what they've already heard. You may be surprised. Kids pick up jokes, symbols and slurs long before they know what the history behind them is.

Name the thing

Younger kids need a simple definition. Antisemitism is hatred of Jewish people for being Jewish. It's old, and it has ended in horrible places. Teach the Holocaust age-appropriately, and a little earlier than you think is necessary. A kid who knows where "just a joke" about Jews has led before takes it a lot more seriously.

One more distinction belongs here. Adults argue about Israel, its government and its wars, and those are arguments worth having. A ten-year-old in a hallway isn't part of that argument. A Jewish classmate who gets shoved or shunned over a war on the other side of the world is being targeted for who he is, plain and simple. He isn't a stand-in for a foreign government, any more than your kid is for yours. Teach your children not to hold any classmate responsible for what a country does.

Give them a ladder

A kid needs more than "be brave." He needs steps, smallest first.

• Don't laugh. It sounds like nothing. It's a lot. A joke with no audience dies.
• Say one short line. "Not funny." "Knock it off." "That's a lousy thing to say." Flat and calm, no speech.
• Move toward the target. Sit down next to him. Walk to class with him. A bully counts heads, and a kid with a friend beside him is a harder target.
• Tell an adult. Teach the difference between tattling and telling. Tattling is to get someone in trouble. Telling is to get someone safe. If a kid is being threatened, shoved or cornered, telling is the right thing, every time.
• Don't throw the first punch. Your kid isn't a bouncer. If someone is in physical danger, getting a teacher or other adult is the move. If a fight comes to him, he defends himself and walks away.

Notice what's missing: a lecture to the whole cafeteria. Nobody wants to be the kid who gives a speech. The goal is to be a steady presence, which is a lot easier to pull off.

Practice it once

It feels silly. Do it anyway. Play the part of the kid who says the ugly thing and let your son or daughter deliver the line. Do it three times. Make them say it louder the second time and calmer the third.

Then say the part nobody says out loud: this may cost you something. Standing up for a kid can mean a few people roll their eyes. Some friends may go cold for a week. That's a real price, and your child should hear you admit it. Then tell them what you'd rather have: a kid who can take a bad week over one who watched and said nothing.

That's the servant with a backbone. Your kid puts someone else's safety ahead of his own comfort, and he doesn't let himself be pushed around while he does it.

If your kid is the one who said it

It happens. Kids repeat things. Don't explode, and don't wave it off.

Find out where it came from. A video, a group chat, an older kid? Then be direct. What was said was wrong. Not "inappropriate." Wrong. Make him apologize in person, without excuses, to the kid he said it to. Take away whatever source fed it, whether that's an app, a server or a certain friend group. And stay warm toward your son. He's still yours, he did a bad thing, and both are true.

If he's the kind of kid who needs to see the history, sit with him and show him. Plenty of boys turn around fast once they learn what the symbol they were joking about actually meant.

Reach out to the other family

If your kid tells you someone at school is being targeted, call the parents. Not to rescue anyone. Just to say your son noticed, he's in the kid's corner, and you'd like him over.

Then do the small, specific things. Invite the boy to your house. Ask the parents what works for them. Observant Jewish families keep the Sabbath from Friday evening to Saturday night, and many keep kosher, so don't plan a Saturday cookout and assume. Asking is courtesy. Guessing is how you get it wrong.

If you go to the house, bring something. Leave it cleaner than you found it.

Take it to the school

If it's happening repeatedly, get it on paper. Write down dates, what was said, who was there. Email the teacher or principal, and ask what the school's policy is and what they'll do. Stay calm and stay factual. Ask for a reply in writing. If the school stalls, go up the chain to the superintendent and the school board. If you're weighing legal options, that's a question for a lawyer, not a blog.

The calmer you are, the harder you're to dismiss.

What your kid is actually watching

Your children aren't watching your speech at the dinner table. They're watching what you do when your brother-in-law tells that joke at Thanksgiving. They're watching whether you change the subject, or say "Not at my table."

Say it once, plainly. Pass the potatoes. Your kids will remember it longer than anything you tell them about courage.

A father who protects the weak in the room isn't being political. He's being a father, and his kids are paying close attention.

For more on setting a line at home and holding it without turning into a tyrant, see Holding the line at home without ruling by mood. And for why this starts with you, What a father in the house is actually doing.