Reply #67: I was thinking of telling him to carry pepper spray

[njlib]

The thing is, he's not a violent person. I had wanted him to take kickboxing with me a few years ago. I was doing it for exercise, but wanted him to do it to at least feel comfortable throwing punches if he had to, but he didn't want to do it.

In 6th grade, he finally got tired of being hit every single day and ended up stabbing the offender with a pencil. I got the call from the assistant principal at work. She told me what he had done and said he was going to be getting detention! That's when I lost it and ended up screaming and yelling at her that I had already been to the school numerous times to talk to the principal and teachers about what was happening to him. I had told the principal "If I hauled off and punched you right now, I'd get arrested because you'd call the cops. My son is getting punched every day by the same kid, in the same class, and nobody's doing a thing to stop it". The principal's answer was that some kids just need to "develop a thicker skin"!!! After about 20 minutes of my ranting that if they punished my son for defending himself I'd be getting in touch with a lawyer, she finally backed off and said "Well, this behavior will not be tolerated in the future". I told her she'd better make damn sure "this behavior" wasn't being practiced by any of his classmates in the future and that he had my full support when it came to defending himself.

I then wrote a letter to the superintendent, detailing every incident, every conversation I had with every teacher, the principal and assistant principal. I never got a reply...