So there’s this little (ummm, big) rancher kid in a few of Austin’s class that is always messing with him. Austin has come home from school almost every single day to tell me about this little turd that is always pulling the chair out from under him when he goes to sit down, teases and taunts him, hits him and makes fun of him. The Principal called me about a month ago to tell me that Austin went to the office with this kid because they were disrupting class by arguing. I got on Austin about it because I want him to pay attention in class and if this kid continues to pester him, he needs to talk to the teacher about it. It continued– the teasing and shoving, the smacking and such. I finally just told Austin that if this kid doesn’t leave him alone, and the teachers are going to shrug it off– He needs to hit back. I didn’t care if the consequences meant that Austin would be suspended, I just don’t want him to be pushed around anymore.

Yesterday the kid came down the hall in between classes and smacked Austin over the head with his binder. Austin turned around and knocked his lights out! The kid and Austin ended up on the ground fighting it out until a bigger kid came to break the fight up.

No I know what you must be thinking… What kind of redneck encourages her child to fight? But I don’t. In this case, I was tired of hearing about Austin constantly getting punked by this kid who obviously needed to have some boundaries set.

So he didn’t get suspended. But hopefully he taught that kid to leave him alone. Austin said he won the fight, but that doesn’t matter as much to me. What matters to me is that he set some boundaries and stuck up for himself. I don’t think fighting is right, but if someone hits me, I’m going to hit them back. I have a few scars to show for that– sometimes it was humbling, but not nearly as much as getting pushed around continuously and never sticking up for myself.

Bullies suck. But they suck less when they get what they give for a change.