Reply #120: Some questionable solutions being offered.

[riverdeep]

There are people who are advocating homicide in retaliation. I understand the frustration. If the parents get involved, then it is seen as 'hiding behind a skirt'. If they let the kid handle it, well, not all kids can handle it. Not every kid is going to be able to learn how to fight. And call me crazy, but just because you can't fight is no reason to be tormented. That's just using bully logic.

It'd be great if he went to a boxing school and fought, and 'stood up for himself', and the bullies backed down, like the script says they will. But this is 2008, where the costs of violence can be high. What's to stop the kids from getting more motivated by having a kid that fights back ineffectively? Ganging up and beating into a coma? Nothing.

It'd be even greater if we, the ADULTS, realized that even though this is behavior that's been around for a long time, that doesn't make it right. Domestic violence was seen as 'normal'. If you hit 'your' woman, that was your business, hell, she shouldn't have mouthed off! Attitudes can change, even well-entrenched cultural attitudes.

What would I do if this were my kid? Hopefully, I'd have intervened long before this. Talking to the parents of the bullies, the school (which they did). And, yeah, teaching him to fight. Watch the situation develop, and if it gets worse, move the kid and sue the school for everything I could. Maybe next time, they'll take it seriously. I'd also have tried to help him develop friends early on, friends (especially well connected, and large friends) are one of the best insurance policies against bullying getting out of hand.

But, really, it shouldn't have to come to any of this if the adults acted like it.