Was I wrong in this parenting situation?

Yes, you were wrong.

Your son does not want to retaliate with violence, that is admirable. He wants guidance on alternative ways to get the hitting to stop.

Why not suggest he ask the teacher if he can talk to the principal, because the punching is not stopping. He can tell the teacher and the principal he wants them to tell him how to get the hitting to stop.

And he can ask the principal, “what if I stomp on his toes and say ‘don’t touch me again’ ? ”

You need to go to the principal. You need to start getting angry with him/her:
“Listen, my son is being bullied by this student. It has been a repeat problem and the behavior is continuing. You are not doing a good enough job to protect my child from bullying. If I ever hear about my son being harmed by this student again, I’m going to the superintendent of the district and we’re going to have a conversation about why you’re not able to keep the kids in your school safe.”

Just to pump you up before the conversation, watch this scene.

If you really wanted to whip the principal into shape you could begin the meeting by putting a recording device on the desk and say you want to record the meeting for legal reasons. Be sure to get their permission on the recording so everyone knows what’s going on. i.e. DO NOT secretly record the conversation.

I have talked to the Principal before about a different boy hurting my son in grade 2.
It went well and they moved the other boy away from my son.
My son is great I just wonder sometimes if I’m not teaching him to be too reliant on society for protection.
I mean what if he’s an adult someday and I’m not around and he’s getting attacked and there’s no one around to tell?
If he can’t run should I teach him to have a little fight in him?
Like if a grown man is punching you in a parking lot you better get over being nice and survive?

I would tell the principal. It sounds like they are very young boys. I don’t think you need to worry about your son relying on you or society fixing things if he’s very little. Young children need protection, that’s why human children live with adults for so many years. We don’t throw them out of the nest after a few weeks. Nothing wrong with going behind the scenes and getting it fixed for your child if you can.

If you want him to feel physically more capable of defending himself, put him in a martial arts class maybe?

I do think if your son verbally stands up to the boy that’s good. If he cowers that might egg on the bully.

In my opinion.

It is obvious that the other child has a problem that needs to be dealt with and better now than later. But, that is not your main concern. The safety of your son is what you need to focus on.

I would suggest that you follow @gorillapaws advice about dealing with the principal. You have to let them know that you are one of those parents who is going to be involved in their childs education; so many abdicate that responsibility these days that you will be in the minority and so the principal, and the teacher, will take note.

I would also say that your son needs to be instructed in the art of self defense. There are ways of deflecting the physical attacks that do not involve hitting back. Much of the martial arts training involves such and in addition they stress control of you body and your emotion.
But even little things like being instructed to say ”“Do NOT hit me!!” or words to that effect when an assault is imminent would alert the teacher that there is conflict brewing.

I know my own son when he was younger tried this in similar situations and it worked for him most of the time. He would inform me when he got home and I immediately contacted the teachers to get their input But, in the interest of full disclosure, the one time in 5th grade it didn’t work and he retaliated by punching the other child in the nose, bloodying it, he got sent to the principals office. They always catch the one who retaliates, not the one who provokes it. That is why you need to keep records, be vocal with both the teaching and administrative staff and always follow up and follow through. They wanted to suspend him for three days but since the teacher was able to say that this was not an isolated incident and that my son had “probably” been provoked and I raised holy hell about them not stopping it before it got to that point, he stayed in school

Has the teacher done anything to separate the boys this time?

@rojo Thanks for the thoughtful response.
I think you’re right he needs to be more vocal and avoid hitting if he can because he will get in trouble.
The teacher hasn’t separated them at this time because I don’t even think they sit near each other and that boy hits everyone anyway.
It’s gotten to the point that my son says that he overheard a teacher threaten that boy that if he doesn’t stop hitting they’re gonna hit him.
Honestly I kinda gasped when I heard that.
You can’t get away with that shit as a teacher.
I imagine if it continues and I contact the Principal that kid will end up with a “Teachers Aid” or assistant to work with him separately and keep him from hurting others.

Surely you know that nothing is going to change until either one or another boy eventually stands up for himself and flattens this little shit—preferably in front of his peers.

Appealing to authority figures is going to be useless. Unless you imagine him being expelled or sent away for some sort of therapy—nothing will happen to deter him.

This bully is doing it because everyone is letting him, and it’s his way of demonstrating social dominance in his peer group. He doesn’t care about being chided by teachers or the Principal—and likely not by his parents either.

Personally, while I do not advocate violence either I see nothing wrong with a child standing up to a bully if they have been repeatedly bullied and no satisfactory intervention has taken place. I always told my daughter to never start a fight or hit or otherwise instigate any aggression, however, IF, someone hit, hurt. her first then she had permission to fight back.
I think your son is showing great self control and it is admirable that he prefers to not fight back, however, I also think that if you cannot get any satisfactory help from the school officials that, in the event, it continues there is nothing wrong with a child defending themselves. It wasn’t that long ago that kids, especially boys, got in scrapes with other boys/bullies and sometimes fighting fire with fire and being able to defend yourself is necessary.

I was bullied in 8th grade by a couple of girls that used to gang up on me, take my lunch money and blackmail me, under threat of kicking my ass, to bring them candy every day. This was back in the early 70’s and schools didn’t get involved in bullying. I finally had it one day and threw this girl off the school bus into a snow drift. She never bothered me again and then, of course, her little bully sidekicks wanted to be my friends. haha

I agree with @Kropotkin 100%. Screw all this PC crap, bullies need to be taken down a notch however this occurs, whether the bullied child fighting back or serious consequences like being expelled or other, slam the hammer down on the little fuck methods.
Maybe enroll your son in a self defense class or martial arts class. Quite frankly, I’d love to see some little bully boy get his ass kicked, it;‘s often, the only way to stop the behavior.

Young male animals of many species spar and fight to assert dominance and human animals are no different. If these kids were a couple of yearling colts they’d be kicking the shit out of each other until hierarchy was established. I say buck and kick that kid to the curb. haha
I would tell the Principal, in no uncertain terms, that if they can’t get a handle on this problem child that you are giving your son permission to fight back and want that duly noted.

Wow, thanks guys.
It was just different back in the 80s when I was in Elementary school.
We didn’t wear seat belts, my mom smoked in the car on the way to school, there was no cameras in school and no Anti- Bullying programs or awareness that I remember.
If the kid hitting you was your size, you kicked him back and
If he was bigger, you ran.
That was pretty much how it went back then.
I’m happy school’s are trying to be safer, but I have to find a balance somehow so I can protect my child without taking away his ability to protect himself.
It’s confusing, I want to let him be the sweet, innocent kind hearted person he is, but also help him to understand that the world we live in isn’t always safe and you gotta try not to take too much shit from people or they’ll keep doing it until they bring you down and make you feel shitty like they feel.
Anyway, I’m happy it’s Friday another week of school over with and hopefully my son had a good day,
Thanks.

I’m with @Kropotkin in this. He should clock the brat and solve the thing.
You gotta defend yourself.

@Danebiggs Yes, agreed and maybe, if he’s interested the martial arts class, build his confidence but it is wonderful he is also a kind and sensitive boy. Now…go get pizza for dinner! haha :-)

When I was a kid in school there was one kid who liked to bully all the others. One day he decided that I was his next target. Wrong choice. I hit back. He never attempted to target me again.

@Darth_Algar We finally agree on something, haha, bonus points for you!

I agree with Kropotkin, Coloma, Sneki and Darth on this. Everyone has a right to defend themselves, whether the school agrees or not. They are remiss in their authority to control this little asshole and remove him to an appropriate school. When authority fails, people take over—and that’s bad. So, it is important that authority does their job. Evidently your school authorities aren’t taking care of this. Regardless, your kid and every kid needs to know that it is important that they always stands up to little shitheads like this—or one day he’ll find himself living in a country run by one.

One Caviat: Make sure the school has documented this kid’s bullying behaviour. Call the principal and make a complaint. Call the parents of your son’s classmates and ask them to complain and document the time and date they made their complaint. Make sure there is documentation. Then advise your son that it is his right to take this fucker down and how important it is to everyone that bullies never win..

I don’t know your son, and I’d suggest you let him find a solution (and assist him in ways he invites or welcomes).

As for whether your suggestion was wrong, I would say no. I found my own solution to bullies when I was in kindergarten and it continued to work. It involved striking back, or even striking first when they were clearly coming in to harass. After first grade, I rarely needed to actually strike because I had learned to defensively warn and intimidate and stop bullies that way. Bullies tend to be cowards that only succeed as long as they think they can get away with it. Serious resistance can defeat that, but resistance can take many forms, including just telling and sticking to the real story and never shutting up about any lies the bully may make. If your son watched the bully and made a list and reported every single infraction and demanded justice and stuck to his metaphorical guns, I think that would work too. Enlisting other witnesses might also work. But letting him find his own best strategy is probably best.

No. Don’t teach him to retaliate, please. My son wasn’t a fighter either, but he didn’t grow up to be a wimp. Not by any measure.
I would really raise hell with the school, though. But not in the presence of my son.

Yeah, I kinda teeter back and forth on this issue myself.
I hate violence, but the only time I feel like hurting anyone is if they’re hurting my child.
So I get agressively defensive really quick and worry about whether I’m giving good advice to my son or not about this.
Example: I had an uncle that used to pinch me and step on my toes and hold me down whenever I’d run past him as a kid and it always bothered me.
I was scared of him.
So they came to visit my mother all these years later and we all met and drove together to go have lunch.
My son was just a toddler and my uncle was sitting beside me as I drove and he reached back and started pinching my son’s toes.
Well, I lost it!
He’s a big guy and I started poking him in the gut and pulling on his ear while I was driving and I said” You like that, huh, you like how this feels?”
Everyone in the car was silent and he stopped pinching my son and we stay the hell away from each other now.
I didn’t want him hurting my son like he used to hurt me.

@Danebiggs Good job! Some people are such assholes, I mean really!

@Coloma Aww…thanks.

Yeah, we defend our children! They need us.

Also, I wanted to add that suggesting your son punch the other kid in the stomach “so he’d know how it feels,” would be futile. I’m sure the kid knows exactly how it feels. He learned it from somewhere.

Oh yeah! Welcome to Fluther @Danebiggs!

Your son has given you information on how he wants to behave. I would neither encourage nor discourage a child from hitting back at a bully. But I would say you must go to the principal. If it does not stop. Since he is doing it to others as well, maybe you can talk to the other parents and address it with the principal as a group?

Welcome to Fluther.

When my son was in high school – and this was at the turn of the century, so while it may seem like ancient history to anyone who is in school now, it’s still fairly relevant. (Hey, at least it’s not my own high school experience, which really is ancient history.)

My son was being “casually bullied” in hallways. He was a smaller kid at the time, and not very assertive, so I can understand how that kind of thing happens, has always happened, and probably always will happen. I told him that – without having to name any names – he and I were going to see the principal together. No one wants to be labeled a snitch, and I get that, too, especially in that age group.

So we three had a chat with the door to the principal’s office closed.

I told the principal that this was happening, that it was continuous and it was affecting my son’s school experience very negatively, and was slowly escalating. I told him that I hadn’t asked my son for any names, and that I wouldn’t, and that I didn’t want him to name any names to the principal at this time, either.

But I told him, also, that I was advising my son “right here and right now, and in front of you” that if it happens again he has to hit back if “asking nicely” (or whatever version of “quit that!” he used orally continued to fail). He absolutely had to; he could not just continue to “take it” and wait for it to stop – or escalate even more. And not only that, but he had to hit back harder and make the other kid/s realize that this kid is no longer a soft target.

I told my son – again, in plain language front of the principal, so that there was no misunderstanding, no mishearing and no uncertainty – that he might have to bloody someone’s nose or blacken an eye or two if it continued. I also let him know that he might also get a bloody nose or a black eye, because not all bullies cave in with the first punch, real life not quite imitating movies just yet. But he had to know, as the principal and I both knew, that it’s pretty unusual for lasting or permanent damage to arise from bare-hands punches, but being slammed into lockers, being hit and knocked over from behind and being sucker-punched could actually lead to permanent damage, so that stuff had to stop. So I told my son, “Hit them, and hit them harder than you get hit and don’t stop hitting until the abuse stops. Have I left anything out?” I asked the principal. I also told my son that if his actions caused him to be suspended, that there would be zero repercussion for him at home, and that we would, in fact, celebrate the event. (My son was not and is not “a fighter”. I knew with absolute certainty that he wasn’t going to pick a fight to get on my good side, and he knew that he didn’t have to – that I didn’t “really want” that, after all.)

He never interrupted me at all. “No, I think that about covers it,” he said. “We’ll make sure that it stops.” And it did. (I do not think that punches were ever thrown; my son never mentioned that.)

@Kropotkin is right. “The system” is totally useless with these kinds of issues when no one backs up their “zero tolerance” bullshit policies with zero action. Sometimes kids need a good dose of what they’re dishing – and that’s normal.

The zero tolerance thing is a problem though, isn’t it? Don’t some schools have a zero tolerance policy and then your kid winds up expelled if he strikes back at the bully. As a side note: I’m against zero tolerance policies.

Can you talk to the child’s parents and get a sense of whether they give a shit? I would want to know right away if my child was bullying other kids.

The other thing is the school should be addressing why the bully might be a bully. I mean really, he might have some sadness and frustration that needs to be addressed.

I think a lot of these answers are pretty pathetic frankly. Someone made the comment that he’s bullying because he can. I think there’s a good chance the bully may be being abused at home (It’s really common for bullies to be victims of abuse). The school needs to get involved and get to the bottom of it. Sure punching the bully sounds great (and I do think it’s good for people to learn self-defense), and it might make him stop. It might also help send him on his way to shooting up a school in 5 years. The ACTUAL source of the problem here is likely the parents of the bully, which is being exacerbated by the school not taking bullying seriously enough.

@gorillapaws Maybe but it is also just as likely the kid is just a little weenie. There were a couple of neighborhood boys that bullied other kids when I was a kid and they were not abused, they had really nice families, they were just jerks. Besides, I am one that doesn’t like playing the abuse card as an excuse for shitty behavior. Regardless this kid needs to be taken in hand.

@Coloma I’m not excusing the behavior at all. I’m saying there could be a much more serious problem here that “punching the bully in the nose” won’t fix. Additionally the school not taking bullying seriously is itself a major problem.

If they had nice families, the families would not have allowed the bullying to continue. I think that most kids with violent behavior issues like that, especially in the 4th grade, have problems at home.

I agree completely, @gorillapaws. That is absolutely likely as a root cause. But as parents we can’t do the schools’ jobs for them. As Voltaire reminds us, “We must all tend our own garden.” My garden is my own child’s welfare.

Since I can’t know the motivations for the kids who were bullying mine, and at the time the school administration either did not know or did not care, all I could do was tell him “You have to take some direct action, and just know that I’ll be on your side when you do.”

But bullying even happens from ‘well-adjusted’ kids from ‘reasonably good’ families with no particular dysfunction. It’s not abnormal, even though we don’t like it as adults and we don’t want (or expect) that our own kids are instigators. And when kids do “settle their differences” one-on-one (without all of the hardware that some kids seem to bring to each fight, and without the brutal violence of stomping a downed opponent, and other viciousness that seems to be too common these days), that usually does help to settle things – whether it’s proper or desired or not.

@Dutchess_III You’re probably right but…maybe the bullies parents don’t know. I am sure there are kids that are bullies and if their parents caught wind of their behavior would take the little shit by the scruff of the collar and set him straight. If nobody reports the bully to the school they won’t call on the parents and give them the information of what’s happening at school.

I think they all get told eventually.

@CWOTUS I think we’re mostly in agreement, but I do think it’s reasonable for @Danebiggs to come down hard on the school’s administration. All schools need to take bullying very seriously. If they can stop it early they can likely prevent much more serious problems for lots of kids-turned-adults down the road.

So, yes you can only do so much. Calling out administrators who aren’t doing their jobs isn’t exactly the same thing as trying to solve everyone else’s problem.

@gorillapaws

That might be, but for the kid being bullied his only recourse may well be to strike back and make it clear that he will not be an easy target.

Ah. But he doesn’t want to fight back…

If it was a girl facing this situation would you be encouraging her to sock the kid?

@Dutchess_III I would. haha
A fist is a fist regardless of the genitalia below it. lol
Disclaimer” Only as a last resort but if all else fails, sock it to ‘em.

I’m just trying to put myself in the child’s shoes. How would you feel if you were encouraged to do something that was abhorrent to you and you knew you’d feel just horrible about it afterward?

@Coloma It would depend on the age of the genitalia. lol lol lol

@Dutchess_III I agree that no child should be forced or encouraged to commit an act of violence against another but…if a child is lacking confidence in being able to stand up for themselves then maybe some sort of confidence boosting is in order, like a Marshall arts class as I mentioned. Only if the child is interested though, I don’t believe in pushing kids into things they have no interest in. The question is, is this more about fear, fear of retaliation, fear of getting in trouble over an actual aversion to hitting back?

Umm…I spent 9 years teaching him to be respectful and to never hit or hurt anyone and his mom supported that as well and now at 9 years old I’m fed up with him getting hit by other kids who were never taught to be respectful and are possibly getting hit themselves at home by older siblings or maybe even their parents.
I’m gonna talk to the Principal if it continues, but really my son listened to me and now I’m confusing him by telling him it’s ok to hit this kid.
My son doesn’t want to hurt anyone and doesn’t want to get in trouble either and he’s a little scared of this kid because my son isn’t violent and doesn’t know how to handle kids that are wild like that.
He just knows to tell his teacher because that’s what we always told him.
I think for now I gotta be more consistent and get this sorted out through the school and then later when he’s a teen explain that punching, kicking etc.is a last resort option that you use to survive only when you can’t walk away and there’s no help and you have to defend yourself or someone else.
I am proud of him for being nice to other kids and for listening even when it’s hard to do the right thing.

That’s another consideration. I think when they’re older they’ll understand for themselves that sometimes you do have to fight, but at the age of 9…not so sure how that could be interpreted.

My son was like yours. He just hated violence. However, when he was 17 he beat a kid up in the parking lot of the convenience store he worked at! Dumbass. The kid had done something to him a couple of years earlier and my son finally got his revenge. However, not only was in the parking lot of the convenience store he worked at, the cops drove by at that moment! Dumbass!
Yep, he spent a weekend in jail. It was pretty traumatic. But he didn’t lose his job, believe it or not. He’s a good man, and a valuable employee. He’s 29 now. Still a pacifist but he’ll do what he feels he has to do. He’s about 6’ 3 so that helps.
My Dad was a pacifist, but he was was 6’5, so not too many people were willing to challenge him. All he had to do was stand up.

Is bullying worse today than it was in earlier times?

No. It’s just different.

“If it was a girl facing this situation would you be encouraging her to sock the kid?”

Absolutely.

This reminds me of a news report about 5 years ago. There was a film of a dad (he was a big guy, tall, and some weight on him, but not fat, but anyway to a young kid he would be “big”) in a school bus threatening a few boys within an inch of their lives if they bothered his daughter again. The news seemed to slant the story to how horrible the man was, but these boys were harassing his disabled daughter verbally and physically, on the school bus. I thought, more power to him. Maybe he had been arrested? I don’t remember. I don’t remember why it made it to the news, except maybe it was just filmed and given to the news outlet.

Well…Laura Ingalls finally had enough of bossy bully Nellie way back when. lol

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKKX6vlqGbc

Knock that Nellie down Laura! haha

I remember that from the book! GO LAURA!!

Once, after Mom and Dad were divorced, my dad took my sister and I to a club (around here, “club” is a euphamisim for “nicer than a bar.” But it’s still a bar.) My sister was 18 I was 20. This guy asked my sister to dance. She politely declined. The guy became enraged, got in her face, and snarled, “You fucking bitch!!”
It just left her shell shocked.
Dad came back to the table and saw her face and asked what had happened. Lex told him, and pointed the guy out to him.
Dad went over to his table and said, “That woman over there is my daughter and we need to step outside or you can apologize.”
The guy said, “Damn straight we’ll step outside!” And stood up…looked up…realized my Dad was 6’5 and started stammering all over himself. He went over and gave my sister a “heartfelt” apology.

But, according to @Darth_Algar my sister should have just socked ‘em. That would have taken care of everything too.

We all handle things in our own way and as I said above, I would not encourage a non- violent kid to act against their nature. I would not leave them feeling unprotected either.

Agreed.

@Dutchess_III

The situation you described above is not at all comparable to being bullied (physically bullied, not just someone calling you an impolite name) in school. Stop tossing around false equivalencies and putting words into other user’s mouths.

@Darth_Algar my POINT is girls are faced with bullying all their lives. It was just luck that that incident didn’t turn physical.
My point is, girls need to learn many different ways to deflect bullying. Just teaching them to hit back will fail badly as they get older.

@Darth_Algar‘s point is completely correct. If the confrontation turns physical – any confrontation with any assailant, no matter how bad the odds and how bad a mismatch – has to be “met”. Maybe you or someone else could have intervened with the rude man if he also became “rude and violent”, and if polite words or humor or some other form of deflection fails. But when push comes to shove – and only when that happens – then one has to know how to and be prepared to shove back. Or punch, trip, kick, bite, gouge out an eye or two, rip ears from heads and break bones. That is, no sane and sober person wants to be in a bar fight, but when the bar fight starts and there’s no other escape, then one has to fight back harder.

Whether one likes it or not.

But it is foolish in the extreme, and no one has counseled here, to respond to “bad words, bad attitude” or anything like that with an escalation of any sort, whether it’s “just harder words” or the sort of physical confrontation that you think was suggested, @Dutchess_III. It wasn’t. No sane or sober person would advise a petite or young or inexperienced woman or girl to start a bar fight, either.

You weren’t wrong.

The OP @Danebiggs has left the building.

@Dutchess_III

And a girl isn’t always going to be able to hide behind daddy. Girls need to know how to stick up for themselves. Also, as as @CWOTUS pointed out, nowhere has it been suggested to “just teach them to hit back”. Striking someone just because they called you a bad name would make you worse than they are (and probably land you an assault charge, rightfully so). Someone drunk in a bar calls you a “bitch” then deflect it, ignore it and walk away, whatever. It’s rude, but it’s not going hurt you. But if someone gets physical with you then you need to know to defend yourself.