My 14 yo son is a blackbelt in Taekwondo. He worked really hard to get there, has always had a lot of discipline and regularly competes in competitions. It’s been drilled into him by his teacher and myself that the best way to avoid physical conflict is to walk away and Taekwondo also taught him de-escalation techniques and how to avoid getting into fights. It’s a sport for him. He’s never been in a fight other than the odd push or shove in the playground in his life…until the other day. A boy in the year above him has been “hassling” him for months, as he puts it. I’d call it bullying. He’s had racist abuse from this boy (DS is mixed race in a very white school) I’ve spoken to the school about this, nothing ever seems to change. The boy’s deliberately tripped him up a number of times, causing him to fall, taunts him, steals & hides his schoolbag, and has shoved him more than once. From what I know DS gives back as good as he gets verbally but has never retaliated physically. The other day however, this boy shoved him hard (not just according to DS, multiple witnesses also) against his locker and called him a horrible racial slur and DS finally cracked. He floored him with a kick to the head! The boy wasn’t knocked out or anything and according to DS he didn’t kick with full force but it did knock him to the ground. There was no real damage done, it wasn’t severe enough for him to go to hospital or even go home from school (the school didn’t find out about the incident till much later in the day). I’m in conversation with the school about it now and DS is temporarily suspended pending a final outcome but the other boy hasn’t been suspended. AIBU to be backing my son here? The other boy started it - he got physical first, my son was defending himself, he’s been bullied by this boy for months (who is far bigger and stronger than DS) including being racially abused and the school did nothing about it. IMO this boy had it coming. DS also used a controlled kick, deliberately designed not to do severe damage. I’d never usually defend my son using violence, other than in self-defence, especially because of how highly trained he is, but in this situation I feel it was warranted. As a black woman, if someone called me what that boy called my son (especially if they also shoved me like he did) I can’t say they wouldn’t get a flying kick to the head either! For that reason alone I can’t condemn him for doing what he did. I do feel uncomfortable with condoning violence but I also feel proud my boy stood up for himself AND managed to have the discipline in the heat of the moment not to hurt him more severely (which he definitely could of done). And part of me feels like saying to the school, well if you let racism go unchecked what did you think was going to happen?! Needless to say the boy won’t be bothering him again and he’s now a bit of a hero around school!