Well he just got home from school and I had a little talk with him. I told him that I supported him and was proud of him for standing up for himself. I told him that I spoke to the principle and she would not budge, so he should suck up the punishment and show them the he was big enough to take it. He went outside to get his friend and my wife told me that when I left the room after talking to him he had the biggest smile on his face that she had seen in awhile. That was pretty cool, actually brought a tear to my eye, I guess parenting has some good points.
Zero tolerance mean such. Your son did something and got caught.
Let’s look at this in various ways.
#1
You’re son hit someone. He had a good reason to.
If you’re starving and out of work and steal a loaf of bread, that’s a good reason for stealing, but you still will get arrested if caught
The point is even if you have a good reason, it doens’t mean there won’t be consequences to doing it.
#2
Your son hit someone and was victim as well but no one else was punished.
If you drive through a red light and the car in front of you and the car behind you drives through it but the cop stops YOU and gives YOU the ticket, you still pay it.
The fact other people violate the law, doesn’t mean you can too
#3
Your child stood up for himself and his beliefs and in the end got punished.
Suppose your kid said "I don’t think it’s right to cut up a frog for science. So he fails science. Well he that is right. In the movies and TV the person doing the right thing is usually not punished, not so in real life. But the lesson is somethings in life are worth failing for. It’s better to stick to your principal and fail a class, well for some people it is
Your son hit someone with a zero tolerance policy, so now he’s learned even if you’re right, sometimes you don’t win. There are consequences to your actions.
If somene aims a gun at you and you take it off him and kill him, on TV the cops says, “It was self defence” and that’s that. In real life you get arrested for killing someone, sit in a jail with hardend criminals, and wind up putting your house on the line or paying thousands to a bondsman, and why? For no reason.
When I was in school I’d get in fights, but only once. My mother would say “You can’t go around hitting people.” I would reply, “I don’t start fights, I finish them.”
My mother knew this, but I knew if I was gonna hit someone back it was on my terms and I knew when to fight my battles.
If it was me, I’d tell my son to accept the punishment, some things in life are worth it, and if he feels he MUST fight back, learn to pick his time to fight the battles. Just because someone hits you doesn’t mean you hit them back then and there. Know when to pick your battles.
I know it sounds like I’m advocating violence, but for me it worked. By the time I got into high school, people knew not to mess with me.
shrug I think you did exactly the right thing. Good for you and I hope your son doesn’t run into future difficulty.
It also means “zero common sense,” which appears to be the case here. But there was no way for this situation to play out other than it did.
My grandson ended in the same position. Kid was poking him in the chest. My grandson used a kariti move to deflect him from hitting him. The yard monitor saw the whole thing. He ended up with a three day supension. My son went into the pricipals office and explaind while he was out of school he would be going to Great America and other fun things. My son felt that his son had nothing wrong
he did not hit the other kid back just deflected a hit.
When my wife found about it she went through the cieling. She works in the school system. She gave my son a list of things to ask the principal.
Did this kid have a history of picking on my grandson? He did.
Did the yard monitor see everything? she did.
Why did she not stop it sooner? And why was it allowed to be repeated over the days?
And his last question, was my grandson safe attending school at this school? And if not he was going to put in for private placement at the districts expence.
Using the excuse that the kid that is giving your son a hard time has a behaviour problem is an excuse. The principal needs to so his job and run a safe school or provide private placement for you son at district expence. The pricipal is not following ED code.
It’s fair then, although any referees or monitors should have stopped the other boy before your son punched him. They’re afraid of stepping in and drawing the wrath of the heliparents, then the problem is that you don’t step in and a kid punches another.
As has been said before, you can tell your son he’s done the right thing and congratulate him on taking the semi-deserved punishment as a man (which you already did); you can also make sure to point out to the school that they should have stopped the violence before it escalated from one boy punished to two.
If you want to get the principal’s attention you could threaten to make a stink about the school failing to provide a safe environment for your son, who was forced to defend himself because the school did nothing to stop this bully who was assaulting him.
This same shit happened to me, I got shoved from behind and when I turned around got punched. Then I got suspended for a day. I got hit and sent out of school, what the hell was up with that?
As for the OP, he did the right thing and so did you. I hope that punk doesn’t mess with your kid any more.
Cool. I suggest you send a brief note to the school (and keep a copy- don’t worry aboutreturn receipt), documenting your conversation and your expectation that the school provide a safe environment for your school. Might be overkill at this point to copy the school board, but your call.
Don’t sweat the “mixed messages” too much. I think one of the best things kids should learn is that different folk get to make the rules in different places, with different behavior being acceptable. Also, the existence and awareness of “rules” does not require blind compliance. Tho if you choose to break a particular rule (and get caught) you should be aware of the implications and who has authority to impose them.
I somewhat differ from the suggestion some people have made that the suspended kid be allowed to do fun things - or be ostensibly “rewarded” while suspended. While we told our kid we were not going to punish him in addition to the school, suspension was not a “vacation” and he had to keep up with all of his coursework. It is a subtle difference, but a significant one I think.
I think the most important thing is, I always found it useful to discuss things with my kids on a pretty sophisticated/adult level, recognizing the shades of grey, uncertainty, and countless unpredictable implications of the various possible choices. I think it helped them develop their rational thinking abilities, instilled both humility and responsibility, and helped develop their independent moral senses.
This kind of shit always brings back memories. I got the shit kicked out of me in school, but we both got suspended for “fighting” because I hit my attacker back, once, trying to get away while I was pinned against a wall with the attacker punching my face. Same punishment for both of us. Great to see that we’ve progressed in dealing with the peer abuse problem. :rolleyes:
See in the school I grew up in (maybe 80 students total) it wasn’t this way. If someone started kicking your ass, you picked up an equalizer and took care of it. Then the person that started it got busted for fighting. You were given the right to defend yourself.
Now in the school system down the highway, there was a kid that we knew that was always getting screwed with because he had a disabled little brother. If he defended himself, he would be the one caught and busted, when the administrators knew damn well what was really going on. They just took the easier road of dealing with the good kid vs. the bad.
Well the good kid snapped one day when the bad kid was fucking with him in the gym, and the good kid reached up and ripped off the scrotum of the bad kid. Who failed in that situation? The good kid’s parents? Or the administrators that let it go on too long?
:rolleyes:
Fucking Zero Tolerance stupidity.
Get a lawyer immediately and file a massive legal action against the principal and the school district. Call the police and file assault charges against the other kid. Call your local TV stations and get their local action reporter or whatever and tell them that the school suspended your son for defending himself against an assault and get their crews over there with mikes under the principal’s nose.
No, it’s not going to be fun. But it is the only way to get schools to back down from this moronic nonsense. You have got to stand up and raise bloody hell until the school backs down completely. Do not accept any compromises - your son walks with a clean slate and nothing less.
Don’t stop there! Nuke em from orbit - it’s the only way to be sure. :rolleyes:
I think the proportionality of one’s response to unreasonable actions is a valuable lessone to teach one’s spawn.
As an adult, we are allowed to defend ourselves against an assault.
Yet when a child/teen is assaulted(and being punched is an assault, “kids will be kids” is bullshit)
a. he’s not allowed to defend himself
b. if he does, he’s punished along with the perpetrator
c. the perpetrator is often characterized as much of a victim as the victim is.
Clothahump has it right.
Bullying is one thing. Hitting is another. There are consequences in the workplace for intimidating behavior.
I had similar experiences as Edward the Head, Oregon sunshine, and JFLuvly’s son. Guys were hitting me in school for much of 7th and 8th grades (mid 80s) and verbally harrassing me before and during that, and never got in trouble regardless of witnesses – EXCEPT the two times I fought back. And yep, I got the same punishment as both of them.
JFLuvly, good job on standing up for your son against the messed up school system. And since you said in #13 that he’s interested in a motorcycle, sign him up for safety courses.
But what really upsets me is in #12, you said:
Bolding mine.
So your son had a “good kid” reduction in penalty to an in-school suspension, but the other kid who was practically tearing him apart and has a certain history got the same thing? Fairness - they’re doing it wrong.
ETA: Just after I clicked “submit,” I realized that the Diver’s Toast in my .sig file is quite appropriate in this case.
Agreed. The whole zero tollerance thing gets taken way too far. In high school I even got in school suspension once for GETTING punched in the face. The kid was not mentally stable, and it was so completely out of no where that I didn’t even know how to react, but I guess, because I was hit, they figured I had to have done something to incite it.
Anyway, yes, violence is bad, and it is not the correct response to taunting, insults, or whatever. It’s often not appropriate in many situations where you can walk away. As in the situation above, hitting him back wouldn’t have accomplished anything. However, there does come a time when it is all that is left. In the situation outlined in the OP, it sounds like it was the appropriate response. If a bully is repeatedly physically assaulting the kid, he is allowed to defend himself.
The whole zero tollerance thing doesn’t allow for these sorts of situations. It may work in 99% of the cases, but then you send the wrong message in the case where it doesn’t work. I’m not sure if hiring a lawyer and going to your local news station is necessary, but at the very least, this situation deserves some kind of action, not just for the sake of fairness, but for a matter of protecting your child and other children from bullying in the future. At least consider contacting the school board or your local representatives.
And to those who have said that’s life… no, it’s not. As an adult, if someone verbally assaults me, I have several paths I can go through to handle it, whether it’s HR at work or, depending on the seriousness, the police. If I’m physically assaulted, I have a right to defend myself. It’s complete BS that we as adults are allowed to defend ourselves and we send the exact opposite message to our children.
I don’t want to sound pedantic, but it is not exactly as simple as that. Should you “defend yourself against an assault,” expect to have the appropriateness and proportionality of your response adjudged by a 3d party.
It’s just starting really, today my own example that it never ends.
A warning note from the bus driver. I’m sure they are not interested in hearing about the whacking, hair pulling, name calling, stealing that my kid and others endure on a daily basis two hours a day - some days coming home in tears. No, just when my kid explodes out of her seat without permission to put an end to it, does the adult pay attention and strike back at the first body on the scene.
But all is groovy in the class room, missing assignments aside Mrs Chela its all hunky dory. :rolleyes:
I agree with you in principle, but that sounds like a bit of overkill.
Going over the principal’s head seems like a prudent course of action, though.