Usually if your hand is the part of you most hurt, that means you won the fight. 

OTOH, it also implies he doesn’t really know how to throw an effective punch.  I would suggest a boxing, karate, or judo program. We boys generally take to these like fish to water.

As they say: peace through strength.  Punching a bully may get him off your back, but knowing how to fight often means not having to.  Just moving into any kind of prepared stance and putting on a game face is usually enough to deter harassers.

Adults generally find it pretty easy to avoid even casual violence like shoving.  Unfortunately, for kids too often the state monopoly on legal violence doesn’t exist (especially in our awful public daycare "school" system).  Some conflicts come down to a choice between submission and fighting, and some of us will never choose submission.

I’m a stay at home dad right now, raising two daughters (6 yrs and 18 mons). I hope I do as good a job of raising them as women as you do of raising your boy as a man. My greatest fear is failing them. You provide me inspiration.

This is not just a boy/girl thing; the truth is that if you talk to enough girls, you know that women can be incredibly vicious toward each other as well as toward men. There’s an old adage, "boys are mean with their fists, girls are mean with their mouths," and I really think that’s a truism: it’s not true everywhere and always, but it seems to describe reality: boys are mean with their fists, girls are mean with their mouths.

Standing up to the bully is a hard thing to do. It’s also a valourous and noble and wonderful thing. Same for the girl who stands up to the gossip-squad that’s all over her.

Some say it’s insecure and crass, but I think "fuck you" are two of the most empowering words in the English language.

"Sometimes, you just gotta duke it out."

Best, HB

I had some experience with bullies when I was 14.  In this case, it was a group of black kids (actually, almost all of the black males at the school were involved) at school who decided they were in control and went about harassing as many white kids as possible.  Most of us were good, quiet kids who never bothered this group at all.  Back then, I was fairly shy and reserved except when around friends and family.  I suspect that’s why I was among the "chosen".  The bullying went on for most of the year. 

One morning, while preparing the bench press in the gym, I was struck across the back of my thighs with a weight belt.  I turned around to see who had hit me and there stood one of the two "leaders" of this pack.  He said "Whatcha gonna do, white boy?".  I did nothing.  When the coach asked what happened, I told him and he just said it was no big deal.

Finally, some time in April of that year, my parents were picking me up from school one day when one of my good friends ran to the car (I had grown up since kindergarten with him and his twin brother).  He said told my dad that "those guys are after my brother".  My dad told him to get in and we took off down main street.  We saw my friend’s brother going in to one of the local stores and just as he started in the door, the same guy who hit me with the belt hit him in the back of the head.  Dad threw the car in park in the middle of the street and he and I followed them in.

When we got into the store, all the employees had vacated the area and there was my friend, surrounded by about eight black guys..  Now my father is a very, very loud man and a Marine Corps Vietnam Veteran.  He can get some looks on his face that would scare Satan himself.  All he did was yell "HEY!" at the top of his lungs.  Those guys couldn’t get out of that store fast enough.

Amazingly, I never had any more trouble after that (and neither did my two buddies).  The black guys told some people that my dad was a "crazy ass honky" that scared the shit of them and figured I was just like him.  The next year, another good friend of mine confronted another of the leaders, beat the crap out of him, and threw him into a trash can.  He turned and asked the rest of the group if they wanted any and they declined.  After that, no one had any more trouble with those guys.

The moral of the story is that bullies, whether they are in the school yard or are terrorists only understand one thing – violence.

I regret not defending myself and I spent almost an entire year of school in fear.  Jeremy did the right thing.  I wish I had done it, too. 

TexasAg03’s last blog post..Stossel on Government Bailouts

(No offense to the other moms, including my own sons’ wonderful mom, I’m just sayin’.)