When my son was young, he was small for his age. He came home from school one day, upset that while playing soccer, he accidentally kicked the ball through his own team’s goal. Because of this mistake, a 5th-grade kid had physically assaulted him. He told me that this kid had been hitting him and bullying him for the past several weeks, and was telling me that he no longer wanted to go to school. I called the school and was told: “Well, there are a lot of children out there for recess, so many that the teachers can’t watch everyone, all of the time.”
I told my son that the next time someone hit him, he should defend himself. He told me that he didn’t want to get in trouble. I responded by telling him to let me worry about that. I also pointed out to him that he had been playing Pop Warner football, and the kid who had hit him was no bigger than some of the other kids on his team.
A couple of days went by before he again came home from school, this time telling me that the kid had hit him, and he had done what I told him to and beat the snot out of the other kid. My son was upset, because he had a letter telling him that he was to be suspended for fighting.
I called the school and told them that I wanted a meeting immediately. I got one for the next day.
At this meeting, the answer that I got was that they had a “zero tolerance” policy for fighting, and the result of this was all kids who fight receive 3 days of out of school suspension. I pointed out that I had come to them just the previous week and was told they couldn’t watch everyone, so why now?
“Well, we saw the fight.” I told them that they have a legal duty to keep my child safe, and when they fail in that duty, even after being told that my child was being physically attacked, they were failing in that duty. To compound this by suspending my child when he defends himself from a physical attack is the height of irresponsible behavior.
I also told them, should this discipline stand, I would be back to the school the following day with an attorney, and we would see where that would take us. I had every intention of doing so- it wasn’t an idle threat.
The suspension was lifted, and the kid never touched my son again. The best part was that my son learned a couple of important lessons that day on how not to be pushed around by others.
You can’t let bullies, in this case a child and a lazy set of school staff, run roughshod over you. You exhaust your options for a peaceful solution, but once that has been seen to its completion, you have to go on to the next step. Unless you fight back, bullying behavior will always continue. The corollary to that was eloquently stated by Mike Tyson: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
That’s the lesson for today. I’m sure each of you understands where that line of thought leads.
