Bully

Cameron came bursting in the front door after school last week hardly able to keep the grin off his face as he shouted that Ethan had gotten in a fight at school.  I kind of laughed at how excited Cameron was about it.  I think he thought Ethan was destined for the biggest punishment our house had ever known.  But I know my Ethan, and I wasn't worried.

It seems that Ethan had been enduring a couple of days of bullying by a boy in his class who, from what I hear, a lot of kids have had trouble with.  In fact, Ethan brought up this boys name at our first parent-teacher conference back in October, telling his teacher that he was being picked on by this classmate.  Physically.

When explaining the "fight", Ethan told me that this boy kept tackling him on the playground, and this time he scratched Ethan's finger with a piece of ice.  (There was no ice on the ground that day, so I'll have to assume it was a piece of clear plastic.)  Having already asked the boy repeatedly not to do that, Ethan decided that he had put up with enough, so he returned the kid's tackle, twisted his arm behind his back until he cried, and scratched his face with a bark chip.

After listening to Ethan's story and asking what the teachers had done, (taken the other boy to the office and sent Ethan on his merry way), I told him that his actions were fine, except for maybe the bark chip scratching, which was, perhaps, taking things a bit too far.

At the beginning of the school year Andrew and I told our kids that if ever someone hit them or hurt them at school, they had our permission to beat that kid into submission.  *Within reason.*  We told them to end it.  Because that's the only way the bullying stops.

We told both our boys that if ever they saw someone else being hurt, we expected them to defend that person, verbally at least, physically if need be.  And in either situation, they had our blessing.  There would be no punishment, regardless of what the school said or did.  We believe that our kids have the right to defend themselves and the responsibility to stick up for anyone weaker than them. 

We also told them that if ever they were the one doing the bullying, they would live to regret it, but just barely.

Schools do a really good job of putting up signs and talking about being a "bully-free zone", but a lot of times it's just talk.  They'd rather ignore it and avoid a law-suit from a parent who thinks their bully-child can do no wrong. They let it go on and on until there is irreparable damage.  That's why our kids were told to stick up for themselves, yes, physically, if they had to.

It seems that Dr. Laura, (who I think is just about the smartest woman around), agrees with us.