Hi, I'm just wondering parents and teachers thoughts on this. So the topic of bullying came up in class and my son mentioned about defence and fighting back. The teacher seemed to be completely against it. I'm just wondering why. I don't mean getting into a full on fight but being able to push back enough to get away. Why is wanting to protect themselves so bad? Kids are expected to know all the ways to stop a bully and get help except for actually defending themselves. I've heard about victims getting in trouble for fighting back. My son isn't currently being bullied but he used to be and the teachers never did anything to prevent it.
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This is a frustrating subject.
My son was being physically harassed by another student and it fell on deaf ears. Teachers said stay away from each other etc. said bully would constantly seek him out.. this went for the best part of the year until my son had enough and one day he just pushed him back as hard as he could. Interestingly enough from that day he left my son alone. Said bully now picks on other people - those he thinks or knows won’t push back. The school do nothing. Except intervene when the Bully is excluded from games by him peers. Which surely is the natural consequences of his actions. Why our children are forced to play with a child who will punch/slap/push/strangle them at whim I fail to understand!
Would be interesting to hear a teachers perspective!
They can't exactly say yes sure mate fight back. Bullying is not always black and white and a fair chunk of the time both sides think they are innocent and are only being mean to the other because they were being mean first. Sometimes kids are antagonised for the sole purpose of getting them to react physically like pushing then that allows the real bullies to beat them up. Its got a name amongst high school kids but I forget it! Then they use the "but he hit me first" excuse and act like the victims. Schools don't do enough to stop bullying before it gets to this point, there should be safe escapes at every school and they should be able to report so called "minor" things and it actually get investigated by the school to stop escalation.
Schools don't promote kids hitting back as it's not acceptable to lay your hands on anyone except in the most extreme circumstances. If you teach kids to fight back and they take this advice into adulthood, they're going to end up on the wrong side of the law.
That is not true at all. You are legally allowed to defend yourself.
It is true, assault is assault it doesn't matter how it starts. This is Australia not USA.
Defending yourself is not assault
What are you meant to do? Die?
Difference between defence and fighting back? Fighting back is a fight, you both get done. How do you not know this?
I'm not talking about full on fighting. I'm talking about defence. How do you not get that? I clearly said I wasn't talking about full on fighting. Besides that's not always the case. I've read reports on many fights and it just depends on how it goes down. Many times the victim gets away with it because fighting back can be the only way sometimes.
The OP is talking about fighting back and so is this answer that we are commenting on.
I am the OP. I said that's what my son said but he meant defence.
There's also many times people have been let go just because their reasoning was sound. Law isn't cut and dry
The problem is that most people dont know the difference between self defence and retaliation.
People tend to think that if you hit me I can hit you back and that equates to self defence but it doesn't - that just makes you an active participant in a fight.
Let's be honest here as well, an emotially charged teenager who's being bullied isn't going to stop to think about that differentiation.
So in that regard, you can understand why the teacher was reluctant to condone "self defence" because they probably didn't want to say anything that could be construed as giving students a green light to engage in physical altercations.
I have always told my kids to never pick a fight or throw the first hit but if they need to fight back or or they're being bullied and are defending themselves they may get in trouble with the school but they won't be in trouble at home 🤷