How far should kids go in order to defend themselves at school?

Bullying makes daily life a real misery for some kids. Do they have the right to defend themselves?

Over the past few years, I have heard of a number of situations, where GKR students defended themselves against school bullies, only to end up in trouble with the teachers.

In one instance, a nine year old boy had been terrorised for two years by the school bully, and one day he finally stood up for himself and kicked the bully in the chest, dumping the brat unceremoniously on his butt, where the wuss proceeded to bawl his eyes out, until a teacher came. At a glance, the teacher decided that the bullied victim was at fault, so punished him on the spot, before threatening him with expulsion. The next time the boy was bullied, his mother asked why he didn’t defend himself, and he responded that he didn’t want to get in trouble with the teacher.

In another instance, and undersized 13 year old boy who had been the victim of bullying his whole life, to such a degree that he’d considered suicide, saw his younger brother being bullied by older students. Again, something snapped and he took action, resulting in the bully ending up on the floor with a bloody nose. This time, the school didn’t just threaten expulsion; on a first offence, the boy was excluded from school for two weeks.

In both instances, the boys had been the victims for years, and in both instances parents had already lodged complaints with form or head teachers, yet in both cases, the schools punished the victims. The question is; do we want to teach children skills that will get them excluded from school or into more trouble?

If you walk into any kids’ class, you’ll see that whilst we teach the basics of striking, blocking and kicking, when it comes to self defence, we primarily teach a less violent response – twisting out of wrist grabs, wrist-locking out of hair grabs, throwing out of head-locks, and so forth. Why is this? Because we are responsible educators: we don’t want to teach excessive responses to every situation – we want to teach students to use appropriate responses. That means if someone is pulling you around by the wrist, a broken arm or a bloody nose is not usually appropriate.

However, the first thing that you need to understand is that the majority of our self defence isn’t appropriate for victims where there is a big size inequality. It’s fine twisting your wrist out of the hands of someone whose grip is not large enough to encircle your wrist, but when the opponent can hold your wrist in a vice-like grip, or there are multiple attackers, no amount of putting your weight into it will get you free. That’s when you need to start using more severe techniques as a distraction or escape. By that I mean, if someone is holding you too tightly for your escape to work, you need to distract them. It can be a stamp on the foot, or a heel kick to the groin, or a pinch to the thigh, or a reverse headbutt – the list goes on. It can be anything so long as it takes the focus of the attacker’s attention away from holding on to you for a split second.

The other thing you need to understand is the fact that many of our self defence escapes are relatively complicated. Even after a year or more of doing them, most adults are still uncertain, and there's one defence that even after nine years, I still get mixed up. So what chance have junior school children got of remembering them, and applying them correctly at the right moment?

In class, my sensei is fond of reminding us, that ALL karate is self defence. A kick or a punch are just as valid as a clever grapple. In fact, they should be your first choice. It’s only because we don’t want young kids whacking each other, left, right and centre, that we don’t emphasise this more.

However, here we return to the dilemma. The best, most effective, most likely to succeed techniques for kids to use are simple strikes. In a self defence situation, once the option to withdraw has been denied to them, they don’t have the time to weigh up all of the moral ramifications of using appropriate force. They have a simple choice: defend myself or don’t. All too often they don’t because they are afraid of the ramifications from teachers. This is a problem with the educational system, not with our teaching.

Few schools are willing to admit that they have a problem with bullying. In spite of the fact that some names pop up time and time again in this regard, they are afraid or powerless to take meaningful action. All too often, the bullies come from violent homes and the teachers are afraid of the parents. So they go for the soft option, further victimizing the victims. They don’t want to admit that they have problems that they can’t deal with, and they lack the sophistication or time to analyse a confrontation rationally, so instead, they label the “loser” as the victim, and the one still standing as the aggressor, with no consideration of the participants’ past history.

In a court of law, this form of summary judgement would not hold up. Both sides are allowed to present their case and have articulate advocates speak for them. Evidence can be presented and weighed: like the fact that the apparent ”victim” has a five year record of bullying complaints against him... This is an issue for you to fight at the very highest levels within your local educational system.

Alternately, although the schools may nominally have a zero tolerance policy against violence (which surprisingly manages to kick in in time to penalise the innocent), the problem kids care nothing for such policies, and can make everyone else's lives a misery for years before being stopped - if they ever are.

Your children have no choice whether or not to attend school – it’s compulsory – by law. If the law is going to insist that your children are parted from you and mixed with hundreds or thousands of others for 30-40 hours a week, it had damned well better make sure that they are safe, and any school that does not take this seriously to the best of its abilities, has my contempt.

But it’s not a perfect system, and your kids have to function within it as it is now, not how we’d like it to be. So, should we still teach our kids to defend themselves against bullies, sometimes using violence?

Heck yes!!!! Unequivocally, unquestionably, absolutely YES.

	Is this how you want your child to feel, or would you sooner help them to do something about it?

Bullying is an insidious and hateful activity. The worst scars it leaves are mental not physical. It lowers esteem, makes children afraid and miserable, it affects academic performance, gives them a negative outlook on life, contributes to depression, and is a major factor in attempted suicide. I know of one boy who was bullied all through middle school, until after one particularly bad beating (the doctor thought he’d been hit by a car), he could cope no more, and he ended his life – aged 12. And the perpetrator was let off with a warning – again.

Bullied children can bear the mental scars all their adult lives.

Bullying is not just kids rough-housing. It’s a serious and life-threatening crime against humanity. If an adult threatened your kids daily, or hurt them, they’d rightly get a prison sentence, but because it’s other kids, it’s treated less seriously.

Sure, wherever possible, we want kids to walk or run away to avoid violence (although that in itself can mark you as a coward to be victimised all the more). But in a world where kids brings knives to school, every confrontation should be viewed as potentially lie-threatening. But ultimately, sometimes kids have to stand and fight. The bullies will corner them in groups where there are no escape routes, or adults in earshot, and the code of the schoolyard can mark kids as victims forever if they "squeal" to the teachers. So when I hear of kids getting expelled after striking out at the bullies, I applaud and shout in a loud voice, “Well done kid!” What I think about the head teacher that expelled them is too offensive to print here, but quite a lot of the words rhyme with "ducking".

We don’t prevent our kids from crossing the road because some kids get involved in accidents. We do the best to prepare them for the dangers. We should teach kids the appropriate use of force, but if they do go a little too far in the heat of the moment, well they weren’t the ones that precipitated the conflict.

We live in a stupid world where burglars can sue you for injuries they receive whilst robbing your house. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't keep dogs in your house for protection. It means that the law is a complete ass. By the same token, we can't be apologists for the fact that our kids and students sometimes hurt bullies whilst defending themselves. In my experience, victims (especially long term victims) don’t just think “Ho hum, I think I’ll defend myself this time.”  They snap. Months or years of pent up bullying takes its toll and one day something inside of them finally goes. The bullies are lucky that they get away with cuts and bruises sometimes, and it might be only the discipline of karate that enables the victim to restrain him or herself.

That’s how it was for me. I reached a point where I thought that I would literally sooner die (or have the crap beaten out of me) than be bullied anymore. I spent years in junior school hiding in the toilets during break-time, walking home by long back routes, not going out to play, dreading another day of school, and waiting till the teachers left school so I could follow them out. No teacher ever stood up for me. I was lucky, the bullies left me alone eventually, after I saw the red mist a few times. But if your kids do get in trouble with the school, that’s when it’s down to you to stand up for them, and to fight as bravely and passionately for their right to live in peace, as they did for themselves.

At least, that’s what I’d do if I wanted to be able to look my kid in the eyes again...