How would you react to your teen punching someone?

[Hardingham291]

Ds is 15, never been in a fight before. He was in school today when a lad called his friend the n word. DS turned around and asked him 'what did you just say?'. The lad replied with 'you heard, what are you going to do about it?'. He then squared up to DS. DS punched him, the lad fell into hedge and that was the end of it.

This is new territory and I don't know how to react. School aren't aware of what has happened.

I've brought my DC up to only use violence as self defence.

Perhaps his friend was brought up the same, and that's why he didn't punch the lad himself?

Either way, as admirable as it all sounds OP, your DS needs to be careful he doesn't get a reputation for himself as a bit of a 'hard nut', because that'll make him a target.

I had a similar phase between 14 and 16 when I would resort to slapping and kicking. Looking back, it was always after long drawn out periods of intense verbal and emotional provocation, for instance having stuff scribbled about me on the blackboard, or having my property taken and thrown around and damaged, or more subtly (from a so-called friend) being very deliberately ignored over an entire break time, for no better reason than that she just didn’t fancy my company at that moment.

While I’m not proud of my behaviour then, I also remember being absolutely at the end of my rope. I also recall my late grandfather’s remark that there are some people you can only talk to with a brick. However, in the OP’s case, I would caution the DS that escalating to physical assault is extremely risky, not least because the target may well be much more fluent in ‘brick’ than you are.

Is this his version of events or has an adult corroborated it?

After a school move after the start of the year when ds was 14 he was getting intimidated.. Tripping over, shoving..low level stuff. Ds is a very very easy going well behaved lad..
Nutted the lad... Split up by staff. The lad shook ds's hand by the end of lunchtime and never had any more bother... School reluctantly dropped it..
Afaki ds has never used violence before or since. Now 20 yo...

Well done to your ds.

i second the suggestion to tell and school, and ask them to investigate the hate crime. No white kid should be throwing that word around.

Good point actually

Violence isn’t the answer but I’d be very proud that he stood up to him.

Honestly? I'd tell him that it is not appropriate to respond to offensive slurs with physical violence and it would have been better to walk away and report it to the school who would take it very seriously and punish the boy but I'd secretly be thinking fucking good job, lad. I hope it hurt like hell.

Agree with others that I would be supportive of him sticking up for a friend and not tolerating bigotry but he shouldn't be responding with violence.

He needs to learn quickly that there are far better ways to stand up to bullies and bigots.

He could have seriously injured the other kid.
He could have been hurt in retaliation.
He could end up getting excluded and/or arrested.

None of the above does anything but distract from the original issue.

You're assuming the other kid is white. He probably is, but you don't know that.

Thankyou for all the replies. I responded how most of you would have-quietly proud but I did have a lengthy conversation with him about single punch deaths, the risk of retaliation, consequences if this happened as an adult. I said I'd rather he'd just have walked away from it.

It happened on school grounds, in school uniforms. It's a pretty tough school, DS has navigated his way through the years really well and I'm very very proud of who he is but I don't want him to be someone who thinks its OK to punch someone, ever really (except in self defense and to be fair, this boy squared up to DS first so I think DS sensed that he was going to get hit, the other lad was obviously looking for trouble).

I don't know, I'm conflicted by it.

All the lads are white except DSs friend. Actually, the whole school is white expect the friend and his sister.

Would he have punched a girl for calling his friend the N word?

I’d be very concerned, extremely disappointed and ashamed.

No.

So he can hold his temper when he wants to at least.

That's a good thing.

3 sides to every story. His side, the other lad's side and the truth.

In days gone by it was nice to stick up for people but with todays roadmen you dont want your son getting "shanked" so i'd be tempted to advise him not to go looking for confrontation.

I've never seen him with a temper, I've never seen him even get angry. He's incredibly laid back, never heard him even raise his voice, same as his Dad, just very easy going, no drama that's why this has come as a shock.

Some times this is the only language some people understand. I don't generally advocate violence but in this case the little bastard deserved it. Maybe he will learn from it

He's 15 now, lots of kids change around that age.

That's why the violence needs keeping in check, incase he gets a name for himself.

I agree.

If the school is mainly white incl the racist kid I would 100% tell the school and ask them to investigate.

I’d also inform the governors but I am bitch

Get him to watch the one punch murder documentary on ITV recently

That's a good idea, thankyou.

I'd be very proud of this. Context is everything.