Is fighting ever acceptable?

[Falcon09]

My son (age 11)was punched today in the park over a game of football. He retaliated and punched back resulting in him breaking his hand. I’m horrified, but I also feel sorry for the amount of pain he is in.

His dad, my ex, praised my son for hitting back and standing up for himself and I can’t get my head round this at all.

I worry about how quickly his temper can escalate. We don’t have any problems at school but I see him reacting outside of school quickly to comments and jibes and can’t seem to find a way to install in him that fighting is not the way forward. Especially as his dad is telling him to show no weakness and punch back immediately when hit first. I do believe he doesn’t start a fight but meets it quickly when it confronts him.

How do you get your sons to avoid fighting without leaving them open to being a target? What tools do you have as coping mechanisms for confrontation? Am I over reacting and are boys just boys and the occasional fight will break out where sport is involved and competition is high. As a female it’s hard to understand.

Violence is obviously not the answer in most situations.
I think it was quite common until recently for parents to say if someone hits you bloody hit them back

So you would rather your son just stand there and take it when someone hits him? Ok then 🙄

Do you expect him to just take being punched?

I'm female. If someone punches me, I'm going to punch them back. At no point am I going to wonder whether I'm utilising the correct coping mechanisms.

What tools do you have as coping mechanisms for confrontation

We had ours do martial arts. It was good for defence as if someone hits you the options are to fight back or avoid getting hit again which is where the martial arts comes in as the basics is pretty much blocking your opponent as the first strategy inclusive of disarming people with a weapon such as knife as necessary.

Am I over reacting and are boys just boys and the occasional fight will break out where sport is involved and competition is high

I was involved in organised sport for years with all my kids and can say it was a thing with teenage boys from around 15-17yo. It’s hormones, brain wiring and so forth. We really concentrated on everyone else in the team controlling the person including physically restraining them when necessary and doing the whole ‘come on mate, let it go, they are not worth it’ spiel, trying to enforce that you are doing your best by your teammate by doing this rather than leaving them to it, egging them in or indeed joining in. Once a punch was thrown though it would all go a bit haywire and they would all jump in in both sides and it was chaos. From 17yo to 20yo you didn’t have to constantly remind them, they had the ‘mate ship approach’ down pat when a player started getting hot under the collar and after 20yo individuals started controlling themselves more and just letting something go without teammates having to step in.

Too right👍

I can totally understand how you don't want your son to react. I'm less clear on what he should do.

I never had a complaint at all about my son but he says that he stood up for himself when he had to.

Your ex is wrong. One punch can kill. He should only hit back if its in self defence, its not weak to walk away if that's possible.

I am firmly in the camp of you must hit back. I would be angry with my child if they stood there and let someone punch them and did nothing about it.

He was already being punched though.

Maybe tell him to drop and roll into a ball op. Covering his head with his arms. 🙄

If someone hits you first, you hit them back, obviously, you don't just stand there while they beat you up.

Genuinely shocked and kind of sickened to see how many people say punch back!!!???

Violence is never the answer unless it's literally you're only option to survive. If someone punched me I would try to get evidence (recording, witnesses?) and report them. How does punching back solve anything at all!?

Great, time and time again it's shown that nothing ever comes of it. Especially in schools.

Well aside from the one who punched first knowing they can get away with it and doing it again, that is.

Easy to say when you’ve never been punched.

But how does punching back solve anything? It just reinforces that punching is ok.

Not me but I've been there when friends have been punched. They didn't punch back and escalate the situation.

But how does punching back solve anything? It just reinforces that punching is ok

So, you’d just stand there and keep being punched until what - they finally gave up, or you became unconscious (which I guess would solve the conundrum somewhat), or maybe dead (definitely solves it), or hope someone comes to your rescue which may or may not happen. Because you don’t want to punch them back?

I clearly said the exception was survival! Yes, if someone was pummeling me to the point I might go unconscious or die, of course I'd defend myself!

I'm talking about a single punch. I'd walk away, get myself to safety, then report to authorities.

@lovelysunshine22 @123letsblaze

But you have to admit there is a time and a place and having the ability to utilise other strategies is vital. Sometimes punching back would be the most stupid thing you could do.

If a lunatic drugged out guy in a group of guys punched you on the street you'd be better off getting the hell away or else you risk being beaten to a pulp and raped.

Losing control and leaping into a retaliatory fight isn't always very smart.

Can I ask - does his dad tease him a lot under the guise of banter? Just when you said he reacts quickly to stuff it made me wonder.

You seem to be completely unaware that there are MANY situations where fighting back is going to make it end up a whole lot worse for you.

Being unable to use other strategies could end you with you getting killed.

To add to my earlier comments and to answer your question OP, yes, sometimes fighting back is appropriate. Often it's not. Totally depends on the situation.

@letsgoooo You seem to be completely unaware that there are MANY situations where fighting back is going to make it end up a whole lot worse for you. Being unable to use other strategies could end you with you getting killed

How condescending, so I’ll respond exactly in kind. Thanks, I’m not completely unaware. Did you read my first post where I stated that had my kids trained in martial arts from a young age? Please read it. I specifically said because it involved the avoidance/defence aspect via blocking - that’s what they were taught if you couldn’t remove themselves from a situation, right through to disarming opponents with weapons once they got older in training. That’s all ‘first line’ and why I had my kids trained as such. So, not completely unaware at all.

However, there are going to be times when none of the above is going your way and if these first line defences of removing yourself if possible, or using defensive blocking/disarming moves are not working you have to be able to fight your way out of it. And win. That’s harsh reality. Are you completely unaware of this? The other harsh reality is that kids are not natural born negotiators in these situations, it’s a skill some can develop with appropriate guidance/training but not all can. It’s pretty much like some people can become successful hostage negotiators, yet others with the same training just couldn’t do it and would be abject failures at it if forced. Are you completely unaware of this. So pleased I managed all of that without using caps once😉.

@HoppingPavlova
If that's how we are playing it then you will see in MY other post that I said there are situations for fighting back and situations for not.
^
I was responding to your comment^ 'so you'd just stand there and keep being punched...'

You agree is not always very smart to do so 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think it shows a lot more strength and maturity to not hit back and absolutely will set him up better. What happens if his partner hits him as an adult? You think he should punch them back?
I would be incredibly proud of a child if they were strong enough to just walk away and hold their head high. Plus then it won’t be a “boys being boys” in the eyes of the school it will be a one sided assault and your son will look a lot better!