What To Do When Your Kid Asks “Will I Get Bullied For Wearing This To School”
Sunday night, I’m folding crumpled soccer uniforms at the kitchen table, leftover garlic bread still sitting on a paper plate beside the basket, when my 13-year-old son Jax leans in the doorway. He’s twisting the cuff of a faded gray hoodie between his fingers, and his voice is smaller than usual when he asks, “Mom, will I get bullied for wearing this at school tomorrow?”
The hoodie is the one his grandpa got on their father-son Disney trip two years ago. It’s oversized, has a cracked Darth Vader print that reads “World’s Okayest Dad,” and it was too big for grandpa even back then. When chemo shrank his frame a few months later, he handed it off to Jax, who’s refused to throw it out even after it got a permanent coffee stain on the cuff from grandpa’s last Christmas morning with us. Jax had been talking all week about school spirit week, and tomorrow’s theme was comfort clothes. This was the most comfortable thing he owned.
My first instinct was the same one most of us have: brush off the worry. “It’s so cool,” I almost said. “Anyone who says anything is just jealous.” But I stopped, because I remembered last month, when he came home red-eyed after a group of boys teased him about the bulky orthotics he wears for his flat feet, calling his sneakers “clown shoes.” This wasn’t just a random question. It was him carrying that old hurt, asking for help with something that felt really high stakes.
My husband Mike, who teaches 7th grade down at the local middle school, put his phone down and didn’t jump to reassurance either. He just said, “That makes total sense to worry about that. I got teased for my mullet all through 9th grade. I still remember how hot my ears got when guys would whistle at me between classes.” No fixes, no lectures, just a real memory that let Jax know his fear was normal.
That’s the thing I’ve started to notice, both from my time volunteering in the school library and from raising a middle schooler: most of the time, when kids ask this question, they’re not asking for you to guarantee nothing bad will happen. They’re asking if it’s okay to be scared. They don’t need a motivational speech about being yourself. They need you to not call them silly for caring what other kids think.
Middle schoolers are wired to care about fitting in. That’s not a flaw, that’s just how development works at that age. They’re figuring out where they stand in social groups, and getting teased can feel like your whole world falling apart when you’re 13. When we force them to “just be brave” and brush off their worry, we’re asking them to prioritize our idea of confidence over their own actual comfort. That doesn’t build confidence—it just teaches them not to come to us with small worries next time.
Mike asked Jax what options he’d thought through, and Jax laid them out: he could wear his plain Nike hoodie that all the other guys have, which would be fine, but he didn’t love it. He could wear the Star Wars hoodie and keep his puffer jacket zipped over it all day. Or he could just wear it as is. We didn’t push him to pick the third option, even though both of us wanted him to. Instead, we just talked through what would happen if someone did say something. Jax decided if anyone said anything mean, he’d just say “It’s my grandpa’s” and walk away. We also made a backup plan: he could text me any time before lunch, and I’d bring the Nike hoodie to the office, no questions, no lecture about how he should have stuck it out. I kept the Nike hoodie folded in my trunk all morning just in case.
When I picked him up after school, he was still wearing the Star Wars hoodie, jacket tied around his waist. He said one guy made a comment about it being old and dorky when he walked into homeroom. Jax just said what he planned to say, that it was his grandpa’s, and the guy just shrugged and said “oh, okay” and turned back to his phone. Three different kids asked him where he got it, and one of them even said Darth Vader was his favorite too. He wore it all day, ate lunch in it, played basketball in it at recess.
We don’t talk about it much now, but he wears that hoodie at least once a week. Sometimes someone makes a dumb joke, and he just shrugs and says it’s the most comfortable thing he owns. It worked out this time, but that doesn’t mean it works out that way every time. Last semester, my niece decided not to wear her pride hoodie to school because she was nervous, and her mom didn’t push her—she kept it in the car, and my niece started wearing it halfway through the year when she felt more comfortable.
The practical part of this, the thing I pass on to other parents when they ask me about this stuff, is really simple. First, never open with “You won’t get bullied, don’t worry.” It’s empty, and it dismisses how they feel. Instead, say something like “It makes total sense to worry about that— that would feel scary.” Second, let them pick what level of risk they’re comfortable with. It’s their day at school, not your chance to prove they’re confident. Third, always make a concrete backup plan. It can be as simple as keeping an extra item in your car, or agreeing they can call you to come home early if it’s really bad. Giving them an out doesn’t encourage bullying, it gives them control.
It’s been a few months since that Sunday night. Jax still gets teased sometimes, for small things, and he still comes to us to ask if something he’s wearing is too weird. I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t guarantee he’ll never get hurt. But I do know that this time, we got it right: we didn’t fix his worry, we just let him work through it on his own terms. That’s more than enough most days.
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