(or completely old-fashoned) to feel a bit shocked about this?

[Countingthegreyhairs]

As I'm not overly-confident about my own parenting skills I'm currently addicted to those Tiny-Tearaway/Super Nanny type of programmes. Anyway, I was watching one of them last week which featured a father talking to his four-year-old son. The conversation went like this ...

Father: Did you have a good day at school?

Son: Yes but x hit me.

Father: Did you hit him back?

Son: Yes

Father: (said very casually) That's my boy! What do you want for tea?

This has been on my mind ever since. The conversation wasn't even alluded to in the programme and it was the casual acceptance that 'hitting back' was not only acceptable but expected that shocked me. Am I being unreasonable or is this what we are supposed to teach our children nowadays?

i tell my dd to hit them back as hard as she can and they should leave her alone, it was the same when i was at school, i got bullied for years until one day, i smacked them back very hard, and they left me alone. it is not ideal, but when you can't be there all the time, and the teachers do not deal with it, i think your child should be allowed to defend themself.

Edam said

"those who teach their children to hit back - what if the original hitter has SN, for instance, and doesn't have the understanding to moderate their behaviour or the empathy to realise that hitting is not nice? Is it OK for your NT kid who should know better to hit an SN kid who may not have that ability?"

One of my children has SN and funnily enough doesn't go around hitting other children at random. And if he did I would question whether his current school setting was the right one for him. However, if someone 'bullied' him I would hope that he would give as good as he got.

My 'normal' children are just ordinary kids. If someone was to hit them I doubt that they would weigh up all the options before retaliating. Harsh, but true.

Unprovoked violence is unacceptable, but if anyone hit me I would retaliate. And that is what I have advised my children to do.

Bullying/violence as children get older doesn't just happen in the playground where teachers can be called upon to mediate. It occurs on the bus, on the walk to school or when you are out with your friends at the weekend.

Parents need to be realisic.

my son has SN, he is autistic. his school does a fab job and are very good.

unfortunatly he is excitable at times and there are other times when he finds social interactions frustrating or confusing and his only way of dealing is to push the people away, that can sometimes be quite violant.

there is very little i, or his teachers can do to prevent this other than lock him ina room alone.

Sn is a very broad term, just because your child doesn't do something doesn't mean other wont. your childs SN could be purely physical.....it is wrong to judge al children by your own child, whether that is NT or SN.

It is always wrong to resort to violance but it is natural for a child that has been hit to hit back, unless they are taught more apropriate ways of dealing with it. I know that if my ds has hurt someone and i am told he has been hit back i certainly dont blame the child that has hit him.

It's very, very difficult. I want to teach DS not to be violent (I have a DD at school already but this seems to apply more to boys). On the other hand, I don't want him to be the kid of kid who is an easy target. I was never seriously bullied at school, although a couple of boys who liked to throw their weight around "marked my card"; I used to avoid them and parry verbally with them if I ever had to confront them.

I like you obimomkanobi, and 100 bonus points for having THE coolest Mumsnet name.

I've seen both sides to this.

DS3 (in infants) went through an aggressive phase, and whilst we (and the school) were doing our utmost to deal with it, certain parents were encouraging their children to hit back. All this did was exacerbate the problem.

DS1 (in secondary) got attacked three times by a couple of lads one weekend. He walked away the first time, the second and third he ended up on the floor being kicked. After that we told him to defend himself if the situation arose again. When the inevitable happened, he floored the lad and had no further problem.

In an ideal world, everyone would teach their children not to retaliate. Unfortunately that doesn't happen.

Obi, I wasn't implying that all SN kids hit, just that some do (been lots of threads on this). Lots of kids do, of course, but if a child has SN, I'd hope there would be a bit more understanding and a bit less thuggery. And if you teach your kids to hit back, that's not going to happen - they can't be expected to work out in every situation whether the other kid has SN, for instance. Or is having other problems.

..and what if a child is being bullied by an SN child? There are lots of problems about this.

perhaps the way is judo or similar that teaches self-defence and being able to control an aggressor without necessarily hurting them? it will also teach self discipline which is useful.
my two ds's are taught not to hit - i will want them to be able to defend themselves but hitting back isn't always the answer. there's always a bigger child who hitting back isn't going to help/work but if he can put him on his ass with a judo move it will stop the bigger child as it will make him look silly.