To be proud of my son for standing up to his bully?

[Spreeofthemoment]

My DS is in y6. One boy in particular has been making his(and a few others) life hell he’s it wanted to go to school because of him. Well today, he snapped and floored this boy after he came and pushed DS over(he’s always pushing him!). This boys nose was bleeding. I got a call off the head and told him I won’t be punishing my son and that I’m proud of him for standing up for himself and showing this boy he won’t be bullied anymore, as clearly the school weren’t doing anything to protect my son!

Once you go down that violent route, you would be wondering what was coming next. A real bully is not likely to take being "floored" on the chin. I'd be concerned that my child might be on the receiving end of the bully and their friends next time.

Always better to go through the proper channels if there is a problem between children. What else had you tried, OP, before it came to this?

Floored as far as I'd see it, would mean he lamped him.

Some, but not all martial arts are throwing.

So the OPS son managed a bully with violence and bullying? And people think that taught anyone a valuable lesson? What it taught everyone was that the most violent / scary person wins. That is bullying defined.

If this were my child I might argue mitigation. But that's not an excuse, and not a free pass. There should be a sanction for the approach, which was wrong. But I'd also be asking why the bully got away with it for so long? It's possible to be rational and reasoned. I might never blame a child for lashing out if provoked. I wouldn't praise or excuse it either.

And I notice the OP Posted and ran... so I doubt its true anyway.

@thepenismightier at 6? Away to f! Some of them are nasty little sods and there’s never any much more to it….as far as the other child is concerned. I spend a lot of time at pre schools/with year 1/2 classes. They always pick on the ones they think are less likely to fight back, I’ve watched and seen the patterns of behaviour time and time again. Always nice for them to get a lovely surprise and for someone to fight back. Especially as is often the case the school do bugger all!

I think you have warm feet.

The OP's child is not six. He is in Year 6.

I’d be fine with it. My brother did the same thing when we were kids, as soon as he hit him the bullying stopped. I’m not having some little shit think they can bully my children and get away with it.

That's how it's done OP. The only way to deal with bullies, well done to him.

Well done to your son OP. I taught my three that they could never throw that first punch, but do not stand for getting pushed about by bullies. If one hits you, then make your punch count and I'll stand up for you to the school if they complain.
Only one of my kids ever hit someone. The bully had gone from big to boy causing grief. Knocked Ds's best friends front teeth out, then had a go at Ds, he floored him. The school told Ds that he wasn't in trouble.

Good for your DS

My DS was bullied for years in Primary - school, governers, police all did NOTHING. Oh apart from a whole year assembly on bullying. Surprise surprise that didn't work.

For years I stressed to DS not to physically retaliate - I really regret not giving him my blessing to floor the little shite sooner.

I also expressed to the school that I was not going to punish him and that as they failed for years to protect him from physical harm at school he would be retaliating every single time with my blessing from then on.
Unfortunately it's the only language bullies understand.
Schools are useless at dealing with it.
Police were sympathetic but also useless.

He only had to retaliate twice. Second time ended up with the bully crying on the floor in the mud. He left DS alone after that.

My DS is a kind gentle boy who avoids confrontation. He won't get bullied again though.

@PurpleButterflyWings in this instance I'll have to disagree with you. DS1 was bullied in year 4. He then punched his tormentor in the solar plexus, his because he thought he'd killed him but was never bullied again. So in that case, violence was the answer. It was also a lesson for me. I'd been up to that point a person who also thought violence wasn't the answer. I was wrong in the case of physical school bullying. It most definitely is the answer.

There’s another thread on here, where a mum tells about her daughter being repeatedly verbally bullied, in class, in front of the teacher. The school did nothing

when her DD eventually snapped back with a verbal retort, she was then punished by the school while the bully was let off. Because according to the school, the bully is a sensitive soul.

i hope the bully has learnt his lesson, OP.

Good for your son. Sometimes fighting back is the right thing to do.

And your son would still be being bullied 👏

The problem OP is that if every parent told their child to retaliate that there would be a lot of fighting and aggressive behaviour in schools. I would also guess that if your child had been pushing someone and that person punched him, you would probably be complaining that he had been assaulted.

He had another choice. The choice is to walk into the building or up to the nearest adult and say X has pushed me. He chose to be aggressive back. I don't think this is OK. No doubt he will receive a consequence at school.

Have you named changed part way through this thread @thepenismightier ?

Floored as far as I'd see it, would mean he lamped him.

Ah well. I can’t get worked up about her ds doing that. It sounds like her ds was pushed and pushed to get to that point. He’s not the bad guy here.

He did the right thing for him. I'm assuming anyone who'd stand and be punched/kicked/pushed has never been punched/kicked/pushed. I wouldn't. My son did the same when he was assaulted by a little shit practicing his moves. I've always assured my kids they can defend themselves, I will stand by them.
He did, and little shit was no longer an issue.

Well the bully had it coming didn't he. Your son isn't Jesus , or a diplomat , he's a young man standing up for himself, he finally snapped .Schools are hopeless at sorting this sort of thing out. Sometimes bullies need a taste of there own medicine.

Years of my DS reporting his bully did absolutely zilch.

I wish he had retaliated sooner, it would have saved a lot of heartache and stress.

Oh yeah. Much better to just continue to be pushed around by the bully.

And you wouldn’t be ashamed of the way the school have not sorted it and allowed bullying

get over yourself

My son did this once too. He was pushed over, punched and kicked on many occasions by some little shit. We had spoken to the teacher a few times, it didn’t improve. We spoke to the headteacher twice, it didn’t improve.

One day, after yet another incident, my son hit the little shit back. No punishment from us and I told the school that’s what happens if bullies are left to bully. Little shit never bothered my child again other than a bit of name calling which my son thought was pathetic. Little shit grew into a big shit and years later after many incidents with others, he was eventually removed from the secondary school my son and he went to.

If you had spoken to the school and they failed to stop this happening, good for your son. Hopefully it’ll put a stop to it. In an ideal world it wouldn’t happen or staff would deal with it. But it’s not an ideal world.

Meanwhile, children are constantly told to ‘turn the other cheek’, go and find a teacher (‘telling tales’ will certainly remove the target from their back - not), not be able to find one, and then it’s one child’s word against the other. And the school is likely to do very little, if anything, about it.

And so the child - known for being aggressive to multiple children - continues to have carte blanche to carry on intimidating and behaving inappropriately.

How do we expect children to learn any sort of lesson when the adults’ way of dealing with the problem - which believe me, absolutely IS a huge problem in their little world - is completely and utterly ineffectual?

Self defence. Fair play to him!