Seriously, this is getting out of hand!

[Hana]

Just a brief note... everybody saying that fighting back is the answer - I agree. In principle.

But it has to be controlled violence. It isn't about going berserk and dislocating some kid's shoulder. Going hysterical won't help. I'm pretty sure Nydanna's kid doesn't want to be seen as "the crazy scary one." And as Hellis very astutely noted, getting a reputation for being a hardass actually encourages violence against you, often - you're a living, breathing video game boss for anyone who considers themselves a tough guy to take down as an ego boost and to show off. My brother suffers from this, being a fairly heavily built, 6'4" guy with MMA training. He's a target.
You need to teach them how to throw a controlled punch. How to defend themselves capably and in control. That actually negates a lot of the perceived issues with "encouraging violence" in your kids - that way, you're teaching them that control is needed if you ever use violence for self-defence. It's not about a zerg rush of adrenaline and power and shit.

Again, just a personal opinion. It worked very well for me. I was targeted by a lot of bullies and had to stick up for my brother a lot, and keeping my cool and landing a few good punches as if I knew what I was doing always worked better than going crazy. Going crazy got me in trouble too, often, because they saw me as hysterical, unstable, and violent if I did that. And confidence and control scared off the bullies way more than some screaming, terrified kid flailing everywhere. As has been noted, they're insecure themselves - they don't wanna go up against someone confident and calm.

My brother doesn't immediately respond with violence, but I get your point. The situations I listed with him were the more extreme ones. I don't exactly fault him for breaking someone's jaw if that kid threw a big rock at the back of his head. That could lead to serious injury. However, his reaction to the kids upending his lunch over him does seem to be a little extreme in some people's eyes(?), but I forgot to clarify that the leader kid and his group had been teasing and poking the sleeping lion that is my brother for days before that. My brother usually has a lot of patience when it comes to other children, but he's also a little unpredictable (with how harshly he would retaliate). Trust me, my father has actually given him a three strike rule, and after the third strike he's free to hit back. We know how much harm he is capable of, especially me since I've witnessed it and have been on the receiving end sometimes. He's not the shrieking, flailing type. I only know when he's really mad because he's usually a happy, talkative kid, but when he's mad, he gets really quiet and just stares at the offender. He's not panicky at all, when he hits you when he's mad he really, seriously means to harm you, and when someone like that is trained with just how to hit others it honestly is scary.

But honestly, would anyone fault him punching someone if they almost caused him serious injury? The reason me and my brother were put into taekwondo in the first place was that my father wanted us to be able to defend ourselves. Even our trainer has seriously told us to only use it in self defense, and arguably my brother only hits back after he has been hit. Now that he is a junior black belt and I'm damn proud of him, he knows that he has to set an example for the other kids who are training in the art like he is. Nowadays, my brother is still rather cheeky, but he's usually well-meaning to others. His way of speaking and his guts do cause some to be annoyed or aggressive towards him sometimes but he doesn't usually mean offense.

 

[Halo]

@Hanako-chan - I wasn't criticising your brother, just putting an opinion out there. You said that when your brother gets like that, he means to seriously harm you - well, that that's not a good thing is the point I'm making. In my view, it's better that if violence is necessary, you do it because you have to and you use the minimum force necessary, especially if you have some combat training. Just because he isn't physically flailing about doesn't mean it's a controlled use of violence.

But again, this is just based on my personal experiences. Not like I'm an expert.

 

[Minerva]

I go to a Christian School (non-denominational), and they hate Catholics I'm Catholic, and yesterday, i went to do a thing for Drama class, and during the thing, people (I don't know who, but there were at least 3.) began throwing things at me, calling me a Pagan, and that Catholics didn't deserve to be called Christians. The teachers (Who actually cared for everyone.) were able to shut it down. I was cut up, and bruised badly, but didn't have to go to the hospital. I thank God for that! I really hope everyone gets what they deserve in this case though.

 

[SamIO]

@Gwazi Magnum;

I should hope my district's administration isn't significant in that regard; that'd be quite disconcerting considering that, as far as I know, we're not doing anything special except — you know — following the law. If there's an educational organization that's not keeping its staff properly audited and honestly up-to-code, it needs to be reported to the local governing body for education. If a teacher's not doing what they're supposed to, and the people responsible for making sure they're doing their job aren't doing their jobs, and nobody's calling them out, then there's seriously something wrong over there. No, really, I don't just live in a good area — you need to call somebody. There's not a lot of money in schools around here; I should be scaring you with stories of malpractice! Something's really wrong over there. o.o

The right to step in and protect your own child stops where you encourage violence as a reply. Maybe I'm just too much of a pacifist for my own good, but it frustrates me to see how many people think it's okay to (in fact think it's disgusting not to) encourage their child to fight. You have legs; get away from the danger. If they're hurting you and you can't get away (probably because you're surrounded by the bully's buddies), fighting back really isn't going to stop them; it's just going to go from a black eye and some bruises to broken bones and a ruptured organ. This logic of not looking like a victim is pretty and all, but I can tell you that's not going to stop a bully from wanting to put your kiddo back in their place with a few extra buddies tagging along next time. Fighting back does not work in the long run, and that's why we don't encourage it.

But it's still not why we suspend the victim, because we get it: If you're afraid for your life, you're going to defend yourself; nobody here's going to judge you for that. We don't want to put students in that position again, so we distance them from the environment. Hopefully the bullies cool off by the time their victim comes back — they usually do, because they learn quickly that we pay close attention to students who have a history of violence, be it theirs or against them.

Truly, if you're not seeing improvement in the situation, call the authorities outside of the district. It sounds like there's something very wrong with some parents' education of who to report malpractice to when I read some of the stories being written in this thread. :S

Not really sure why staff would want to appeal to the students' 'in-crowd'. We don't really care what the kiddos think of us when it comes to matters of safety. o.O

 

[Mundane Monster]

Ugh, schools are terrible with dealing with bullies. All of that crap about ignoring them or telling an authority figure and 'they'll protect you' is bullshit. Because some school's are filled with idiotic staff who will let the offending child know about the complaint and then it will end up worse for the victim.

Get your son some self defense classes and tell him to kick that kid's ass. But while he's getting those defense classes tell your kid that it's never a shameful thing to kick someone in the crotch or hit them in the nose with his book bag or a book or something.

But if you want to go the pacifist way do what @Kestrel said and tell your kid to confront his attacker verbally.

 

[Kagayours]

Just a brief note... everybody saying that fighting back is the answer - I agree. In principle.

But it has to be controlled violence. It isn't about going berserk and dislocating some kid's shoulder. Going hysterical won't help. I'm pretty sure Nydanna's kid doesn't want to be seen as "the crazy scary one." And as Hellis very astutely noted, getting a reputation for being a hardass actually encourages violence against you, often - you're a living, breathing video game boss for anyone who considers themselves a tough guy to take down as an ego boost and to show off. My brother suffers from this, being a fairly heavily built, 6'4" guy with MMA training. He's a target.
You need to teach them how to throw a controlled punch. How to defend themselves capably and in control. That actually negates a lot of the perceived issues with "encouraging violence" in your kids - that way, you're teaching them that control is needed if you ever use violence for self-defence. It's not about a zerg rush of adrenaline and power and shit.

Again, just a personal opinion. It worked very well for me. I was targeted by a lot of bullies and had to stick up for my brother a lot, and keeping my cool and landing a few good punches as if I knew what I was doing always worked better than going crazy. Going crazy got me in trouble too, often, because they saw me as hysterical, unstable, and violent if I did that. And confidence and control scared off the bullies way more than some screaming, terrified kid flailing everywhere. As has been noted, they're insecure themselves - they don't wanna go up against someone confident and calm.

This is a very good point. I can attest to this.

I had some anger issues as a kid. And, I was also bullied quite a bit. So, quite often I would end up fighting back. The problem was it wasn't really planned or well-controlled fighting back it was just... me losing control of my emotions and attacking people while screaming and sobbing in a rather hysterical manner. And apparently people loved that, because that's what made bullies so desperate to push my buttons. They just wanted to see me flip out. It only made the problem worse. In fact, looking back on it, I don't even remember what came first -- the bullying or my anger issues -- because all of it was such a bad vicious cycle.

And in my case, I wasn't really choosing to fight back; I just couldn't control myself. And it was my hysteric rage that just kept making things worse. Just... food for thought, I suppose.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

Edit: It dawned on me after typing all this that this didn't have the debate tag.
So I'm going to stick this argument in a spoiler, and suggest that if we want to continue this we move it to PM's, as to avoid thread derailment and/or closing by an admin who has debateaphobia.

Not that I actually see this as a debate mind you, I see this more as just a long/detailed (if emotionally invested) discussion. But I've seen enough of them get closed down because someone perceived it as a debate to know that someone is bound to come in, rule this as debating in a non-debate thread and close it if it keeps up.

The reply

we're not doing anything special except — you know — following the law.

This might be something that can get me some heat, but I didn't decided to get involved in education in order to please the law.

I decided to get involved in Education because I want to see children flourish, and get the best chance they can at life.

And a lot of the time that means ignoring the red tape and doing what's in the children's best interest, rules and regulations be damned.

If there's an educational organization that's not keeping its staff properly audited and honestly up-to-code, it needs to be reported to the local governing body for education. If a teacher's not doing what they're supposed to, and the people responsible for making sure they're doing their job aren't doing their jobs, and nobody's calling them out, then there's seriously something wrong over there. No, really, I don't just live in a good area — you need to call somebody. There's not a lot of money in schools around here; I should be scaring you with stories of malpractice! Something's really wrong over there. o.o

Which is great assuming it works.

But the Board is often too focused on protecting their teachers and image to admit there is a problem.
Or in many cases (especially where I live) not work with any sort of special education/therapy for certain students who need it, exception being "Throw you into a class called 'special needs' and then treat it like a daycare".

And Police? I'll defend the Police to the death against all the "Screw the cops! They're thugs!" mentality growing around cause the media wants some extra views.

But realistically the Police are limited, they only have so much man power to spare. You're not going to get them involved in a lot of causes of bullying or abuse, they'll expect it to be filed elsewhere or see it as not severe enough. And if they do get involved, they often can't do much.

This logic of not looking like a victim is pretty and all, but I can tell you that's not going to stop a bully from wanting to put your kiddo back in their place with a few extra buddies tagging along next time. Fighting back does not work in the long run, and that's why we don't encourage it.

It depends on the kind of bully.


Some might see it as a challenge and respond with more force like Hellis and Kaga mentioned.
But in those sort of cases there's also other factors such as the victims natural build, or the victims method of fighting.

But then you got bullies who will simply look for the 'weak' one who can't defend themselves.
A lot of bullies are cowards, and showing a bully you're not a pushover is often enough to scare them off because they lack the guts to take on a challenge.

Though like previously said, in cases like Hellis's where the bullying is directly cause of someone wanting a challenge?

That's a different situation, that would require different solutions. But that's also why in my first post I clarified at the start that it varies on the situation, there is no "one size fit's all approach", and that the stuff I continued on to say was methods to try in general, and were not something that should be followed 100% of the time.

But it's still not why we suspend the victim, because we get it: If you're afraid for your life, you're going to defend yourself; nobody here's going to judge you for that. We don't want to put students in that position again, so we distance them from the environment. Hopefully the bullies cool off by the time their victim comes back — they usually do, because they learn quickly that we pay close attention to students who have a history of violence, be it theirs or against them.

I won't question the motivation that you or your co-workers have, cause I honestly do not know or work with you or your co-workers.

But I know the school I had often were picking favourites.
For one example, there was a day a friend of mine got jumped in the hallway being punched in the face repeatingly.
He responded with a single punch, though granted that single punch delivered the same if not more damage as the aggressors flurry of blows.

Now, this bully in question also had a history of violent activities in my school while my friend didn't.
The bullies activities including stuff such as mugging people, or threatening with knives for reasons such as a girl not dating a friend of his.

So when the fight did get broken up, the two of them a long with me and two other friends (as witnesses) went to the office to report on the situation.

They both ended up getting equal suspension time, regardless of witness testimony, regardless of past student behaviour, and regardless of a teacher actually coming in and pointing out all of this out to the office.

And these are suspensions that can also get stuck on the record, mess with a students future success. So often times a child's educational future is being sabotaged because the school is either picking favourites or trying to protect the kid.

Which also rarely works. Often times the suspension only acts as a 2-3 day delay before rivalry's and fighting are back.

Thankfully in the case above it didn't escalate, because my friends one punch indicated he was actually a challenge, but also clearly did nothing to stop the bully from continuing to pick on other students. Where after the 20th time or so got him expelled.

Not really sure why staff would want to appeal to the students' 'in-crowd'. We don't really care what the kiddos think of us when it comes to matters of safety. o.O
Depend's on the staff honestly.

Some are good, others seem to feel like the best way to keep the peace is to appeal to the majority.
I should note this was also a school that basically neglected any form of attention or funding to anything that wasn't sports related.

+Also considering there was at least one case in the U.S a few years ago of football players raping a girl and the school actively tried covering it up?
If situations like a school trying to cover up a rape can happen, far less severe cases like turning a blind eye to a fight in school can also happen.