Dad refuses to go on a family vacation unless his 16-year-old nephew's friend gets disinvited because he picks on his 15-year-old daughter at school: 'This kid is a full-fledged nightmare.'

He has no business being on their family vacation. How are you supposed to respond to the mean kids at school? The advice "fight back" or "just ignore it" is often touted as a solution, but I don't think either works to end verbal harassment. If you ignore their taunts, they're going to keep going, because they interpret your silence as a sign that although they haven't provoked a reaction from you, they still could. They interpret silence as fury boiling within their victim, and oftentimes, you're right. If you've ever tried to ignore the kid who is picking on you in school, you know how difficult it is to keep it all in. Fighting back doesn't solve the problem either. You are giving them a reaction, which is exactly what they want. It makes them want to harass you more, so you get increasingly mad. If you fight back, it's likely that the school will punish both of you, even though you were the one who was provoked. It's not easy being a kid, especially one who gets mocked by your peers for whatever reason. When kids teased me in school, I figured out a foolproof way to get them to stop. Instead of ignoring them or fighting back, I gave them neutral, one-word responses like "cool…

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