<FACEBOOK COMMENT BY JAMES CARR>
I said it once before and I will say it here again.
NEVER let bullies ill-treat your family members, especially your child. Victims of long-term bullying can lose all their self esteem and fear going to school. It is not uncommon either that victims of long-term bullying committed suicide.
Schools are quite incapable of handling bullies, simply because their punishments do not work on them.
It just gets worse when the school issues punishments.
1. Have your child learn self-defence and give him/her that permission to use what he/she learnt if they are caught in such situations, as long as it is only in self-defence and they have that responsibility to know when to not hold back. Everyone has the right to defend themselves and any school who tells you that your child hitting someone back is wrong or that two rights don’t make a wrong, tell the principal to let you hit him and he should not retaliate or defend himself.
2. If your child cannot defend himself, be it out of fear or lacking the skills to do so, inform the school and call the police immediately when the bullying gets physical. Do not give the schools the position to decide whats best for your kid because most of the times, the schools only decide whats best for the school and not the victim.
3. When all else fails, it is up to you, the parent, to take matter in your own hands. Protecting your family is your priority, no matter what means, especially if the schools and police prove incapable of dealing with it.
If you are the kind of parent who thinks that parents should leave the kids to settle things between themselves in a physical bullying situation, I am sorry to say you need to reevaluate your role as a parent because you are just finding an excuse to shirk a messy but unavoidable responsibility to the child. Your kid is not exposed yet to the real world on how to best react in such situations, especially if they do not know how to defend themselves. This has nothing to do with strengthening character or a part of growing up. You cannot strengthen his/her character if your child has lost all self-esteem and such situations cannot be a part of growing up if he/she is already dead.
It is up to you, the parent, to defend them at all cost.