Do you encourage your children to fight back?

[frances5]

Andrew is reception and he has been kicked and punched a couple of times. Today he got into trouble because he decided to fight back and punched the kid who had hit him. His arguement is that its unfair that the school does nothing about the boys who kick and punch and he is fed up.

I can see his viewpoint, but I dont really agree with it. Do you tell your children to hit back? One of Andrew's little friends has been told by his mother "Its better to tell the teacher, but if you must hit back, then make sure the teacher isnt looking!"

My ds is in primary1 at school and i've told him that if anyone hits him he has to hit back. However Someone did hit him and he didn't hit back but did tell me and i spoke to the teacher. Who then dealt with other boy.

Hmmmmmm. Difficult. I tell ds to tell the teacher first but part of me would love to tell him to hit back. I was bullied badly at primary school and did not "hit back" just stood there and took a kicking. I often think that if I had fought to defend myself I wouldn't have spent so many years feeling like a weak idiot for not trying. I often wish my parents had told me that sometimes it is OK to hit people - especially if they spend their days kicking the cr*p out of you.

Sorry, that's probably not helpful. Plus, my ds who is also in reception, has (thankfully) not met with any real aggression, so I have yet to see how I would react.

My son was bullied in year 5 and the school did nothing. Eventually I told him he could use reasonable force and the bullying stopped