Girl fights, advice for teenagers?

[rob_s]

I am the father of 12 and 14 year old girls. We have done what we can to put them in schools, in an area, where we hope the likelihood of a physical issue is low. and to date neither has had so much as a threat of a physical issue.

however, I apparently have watched enough "bum fight" videos online that now the services are feeding me "girl fights" and that leads me to my question...

Invariably, these fights seem to involve a lot of hair pulling. In some cases, an antagonist seems to approach the victim with their hoodie up so as to attempt to mitigate this, but I would imagine my girls would not be the instigators and would not be able to take that approach. It also doesn't always work out as the hoodie can get pulled closed or over the head and winds up as bad or worse as the hair being pulled.

Seeing some of these fights being broken up by administrators and cops, I get the sense that once grasped it is nigh impossible to get someone to release a hold on a head of hair short of beating on their arm to convince them to let go or hosing down all involved with pepper spray, etc. You basically have to make her want to let go, you're not making her let go.

So let's assume we're talking about advice for a "good girl" that's not starting a fight but could be on the receiving end, that is unlikely to make any changes to her fashion style based solely on a remote chance of a fight (e.g. going in a french braid or cornrows every day), but who still could wind up in a situation where an attacker has hold of them by their hair.

I am particularly interested to know if there is an SOP for this, vs "maybe try xyz" type replies, although the latter are fine provided they are identified as such. Something that's tried and true and known to work or even often taught would be great.

[Guerrero]

Watch for if they take off their earrings, that's a pre-fight indicator.

If you've taken EWO or ECQC, I would think several things from there would work: the "fence", the "default position," the level-change and move into them (the "drop and drive") would work. Keep them from yanking the hair, use your head a the "third limb" to get under the chin and keep close. From past martial arts experience, it's that arms-length yanking of the head that's dangerous, because it seems to lead to being kneed in the face.

[RoyGBiv]

Tangentially.....

Some martial arts training will help them to not crumble the first time they get punched in the nose on da streetz

[Duces Tecum]

Rob, I've never had my hair pulled in that manner, so this is shameful speculation. What are your thoughts about (i) head butt right into the opposition's nose and mouf, followed by (ii) a 45* hard foot stomp on the outside of the opposition's nearest ankle?

If it works, your daughters may not have to do it more than once or twice.


Duces

[Guerrero]

Rob, I've never had my hair pulled in that manner, so this is shameful speculation. What are your thoughts about (i) head butt right into the opposition's nose and mouf, followed by (ii) a 45* hard foot stomp on the outside of the opposition's nearest ankle?

If it works, your daughters may not have to do it more than once or twice.


Duces

Guerrera spends a lot of time in inner-city high schools. Hair-pulling is very common (she says you can see evidence of fights in the halls: fake fingernails and hair extensions everywhere).

[Clusterfrack]

If someone is trying to control her head by pulling hair, ears, etc, the fight has escalated to doing what needs to be done to get free.

Punch, kick, headbutt, bite! Use tools.

Disengage and run.

[BehindBlueI's]

Guerrera spends a lot of time in inner-city high schools. Hair-pulling is very common (she says you can see evidence of fights in the halls: fake fingernails and hair extensions everywhere).

Tumbleweaves.

[CraigS]

I have no expertise to contribute but Clusterfrack's post made me think of something. I think that most people do not have the proper mental preparation for a fight. Probably your daughters have never thought about a fight just like mine. So I feel like you can get your daughters started thinking along the lines of how to recognise telltales of an impending problem, what is a fight, what is an appropriate response, and similar. Let them know that you support any level of violence they need to get to so they survive.

[Hambo]

If someone is trying to control her head by pulling hair, ears, etc, the fight has escalated to doing what needs to be done to get free.

Punch, kick, headbutt, bite! Use tools.

Disengage and run.

My hair is short, so I have no experience. A guy grabbed my beard once, and I got hold of the offending hand and managed to bend a finger so far that he gave up all attempts to continue the engagement. I agree with Clusterfrack, so I would also consider facial targets fair game. Also speculating that if you could grab the hand in your hair, and strike hard at the elbow in an effort to hyperextend or otherwise mangle it, you could break free.

[Duelist]

We’ve had a couple of serious girl fights this year, and many minor, less serious ones. Some of the minor ones don’t even get noticed till later because someone tells about what happened, but it didn’t originally escalate or last very long.

The first one, a girl jumped another girl and they both went after hair, face, clothes: pulling, tearing, scratching, slapping, clawing. The one who got jumped was definitely not the instigator, even from prior interactions, but once it was on, she went for it as hard as the girl who attacked her. When security surrounded them and tried to pull them apart, neither of them switched off. One of them bit a female security guard. They wouldn’t let go of each other until physically forced to do so. I had to talk down one of the security guards who got punched and slapped in the breakup of the fight. He just kept saying, “They wouldn’t stop, they just wouldn’t stop, they wouldn’t let go.” He was very upset about the security female getting bit.

Kids in a moment like that, where the fight response has taken over, may not turn off that response just because someone tells them to, even if they weren’t the instigator, because their brains aren’t thinking logically anymore and it will take time for the flood of hormones and so forth to flush out enough for them to think clearly. As I noted above, the adults get spun up, too, and adults can take time to calm down just as much.

Some of the girls get into the braggadocio posturing stuff: I ain’t gonna start nothing, but if she does, I’m gonna tear her up, I’m gonna finish it. I ain’t afraid! One girl told me she was growing her nails out because they were her weapons if she got in a fight.

For your girls: Having friends that are trustworthy, having a group, a clan, or tribe in the school, prevents much of this. Being sensitive to boy-girl relationship issues (and avoiding most of those types of entanglements) prevents much of this as well: many, if not most, of the fights I know about (and non-mental illness related emotional breakdowns and drama without accompanying physical fights) are over relationship issues where “She knew I was talking to him!! She knew and (talked to him, kissed him, gave him a BJ, whatever)” is considered a legitimate reason to beef with someone. Kids who are in sexual relationships are much more likely to take breakups harder, betrayals harder, and react less appropriately than kids whose dating and socializing is less intimate and serious.

Some girls are very much more into the social components of school than they are into actually being at school and applying themselves to learning. Very few of the social mis-cue fights we see are started or perpetuated by girls who are at school for learning, for band or choir or art or some other actual learning activity. The learning activity the girls are in becomes their space, and the other students participating in it becomes their clan or tribe or group. Athletics can be similar, but there are differences between the athletics tribes and the learning focused tribes, and between the various athletics teams.

Having solid support from adults (most especially parents/guardians) whose interactions with others models appropriate social behavior tends to produce kids whose social behaviors at school is appropriate. Having unsupportive parents, parents or guardians whose interactions with others models criminal or antisocial behavior, tends to produce kids who have trouble with choosing appropriate behavior over time. This stuff does pass down generationally, but like anything else, isn’t 100%. It seems to be pretty much a thing, though: the mom of the girl who did the jumping described earlier was an enabler “oh, baby, did she hurt you?” while the mom of the other girl has had some hard knocks and been in some fights herself, but was definitely not supportive of the fighting.

When I have a small girls tennis team, I rarely have any trouble with any of the girls. When I have a large team, there will probably be at least some drama, maybe a couple of arguments, but the girls all know that exclusion is on the table if they start anything serious, so because they value being included in the group and participating in the activity, they avoid causing anything. They know the level of behavior expected of them, and I have and enforce a hard line that they know they are not to cross, whether academically, at a match, a practice, or in their general interactions with each other. I also have noticed that this particular activity tends to attract hard working kids who get excellent grades, get along well with each other, and are respectful to adults. It’s one of the reasons I love coaching this team.

The same thing can be true for other activities, but certain groups of kids are more likely to have issues, and the adults running the activities affect whether or not there will be issues, too. The dancers on the cheer squad usually have some interpersonal drama during the year because they are together for so long (tryouts in May, cheer practice and camp over the summer, fall JV tryouts, fall camp and practice, sports they support don’t end until mid spring, etc). Especially if the coach isn’t plugged in very well to the relationships in the team, doesn’t know the power of the exclusion or won’t use it effectively, etc., drama will be present to a greater or lesser extent.

Knowing how to disengage from or dominate a physical altercation is not a bad idea at all, but more important is knowing when, why, and even if to do anything. Getting punched in the gym/dojo might be a good thing - a kid who is in the first fight they’ve ever been in on the stairs or floor or in the bathroom at school will react differently than a kid who was in three two minute spars last night at the dojo, and the emotional control and ability to shut off an emotional response will be very different as well.

Hope that’s somewhat helpful - just some stream-of-consciousness stuff that occurred to me thinking about the kids at work.

ETA: one other thought (or a few) on exclusion: if the kids aren’t afraid of exclusion because they aren’t involved in anything and don’t care about the learning component of school, getting suspended isn’t a threat that bothers them at all. Suspensions are a free week or two off from school for those students. I literally had a kid come back from a suspension she’d had for a stupid reason, and ask what she had to do to get suspended again. That was a student who did literally nothing school related for the entire suspension. Most kids who get suspended do little or nothing school related while out. Those few who actually do school work usually don’t get suspended ever again, though.