A nine-year-old, third grade student from Colorado Springs was recently suspended for fighting back against another student who had bullied him repeatedly The target had complained to school authorities, but they had not protected him. Both boys were suspended for fighting. The school defended its actions: "If a student is involved in a physical altercation on school property, they are automatically suspended. District 11 schools employ many anti-bullying teaching techniques … and none of these methods include violence or retaliation," the school said in a statement to KDVR.

If he's in elementary school and is being bullied and the responsible teachers and principal do not stop bullying?
How should he stop school bullies?
Is the punishment fair?

The school officials are saying that even though they can't stop school bullying, even though they don’t stop negativity, harassment, abuse or physical, mental or emotional violence, even though there’s a pattern of bullying, the targets are not allowed to defend themselves by fighting back. According to the school officials, not using violence, even if it makes you helpless, is a more important value than protecting yourself. Being a victim is not as bad to them as fighting back. Process counts more than results.

Maybe the school principal should be suspended for not doing his job.

The school officials are saying that process and techniques are a more important value than getting results, even if they create victims because their techniques don't protect the targets.

I disagree.

Protecting targets is more important than clinging to their ineffective techniques. In desperation, and unlike parents who sabotage their children by preaching non-violence, the target's parents had told their son that since the school officials weren't protecting him, he should fight back.

I go further. I've told our elementary school-aged grandchildren - in secret so their parents don't know:

Try everything peaceful you can think of to stop bullying – be nice and friendly, ignore it, ask the bully to stop, tell the bully he'd better stop.
If those techniques don't work, learn to use verbal come-backs and put-downs.
If those techniques don't stop the bully, tell your favorite teacher and the principal. Get your parents involved. They'll talk with the principal and teachers.
If they don’t stop the bullying, use your own power, beat up the bully. And I want them to learn how to really hurt the other kid, swiftly and effectively.
Of course, they'll suspend you because teachers and principals who don't protect kids are do-nothing jerks and jerks do jerky things and they don’t wan to risk making a wise judgment about who the bully is. When you get suspended, act contrite. Say you're sorry, promise you won't fight again. When no one is looking, wink at the bully to let him know that you'll beat him up again, if necessary.

If you follow this plan, you'll get at least four wonderful things:

The bully will leave you alone.
You'll respect yourself and feel like you can succeed in the world.
Other kids will respect you.
While you're on suspension, I'll take you to Disney World for a big celebration. After all, winners of Super Bowls get to go; why not winners on the playground?

I also tell them that there are some caveats to my advice:

If the bully is much bigger than you or if there is a gang of kids, we'll devise a different plan
When you're old enough (maybe high school) that kids are carrying weapons, we'll devise a different plan.

But the take-home message is always to give the responsible authorities a chance, but if they don't do their jobs, solve the problem yourself. Don't be a victim waiting forever for other people to protect you. Use your own power. Say “That’s enough!” Say “No!” Stopping bullies is more important than never using violence.

For some examples, see the case studies in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” and “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids,” available fastest from this web site.

Since all tactics depend on the situation, expert coaching by phone or Skype helps. We can design a plan that fits you and your situation. And build your will and skill to carry it out effectively.

A recent article in the New York Times illustrates attempts of one middle school of privileged kids in Scarsdale, New York, to teach empathy for those less privileged. The less privileged included examples from great literature, of old, disabled and autistic people, and even of those students who didn’t get invited to last weekend’s social activities by the “in-crowd.” Similar efforts are being considered by many other middle and high schools. Can such programs succeed? Should schools engage in social engineering?

Education, in the root of our word and from its earliest time, was based on “cultivation” in the sense of cultivating a crop of good and virtuous citizens capable of leading a society that does good and supports the virtue of all citizens. Leading was usually the vocation of only the privileged. Education of the less privileged also emphasized creating good and virtuous citizens, but was focused more on what we might call vocational training for productive labor.

We can’t convert all schools – elementary, middle or high schools – into strictly vocational training and expect to produce good and virtuous citizens, capable of self-government. In our democratic society, we treat all kids as privileged in the sense that they get training in virtue and being a good citizen. They all also have the potential of serving at the highest levels of government, instead of such service being the privilege of only those born to privilege.

Empathy is a necessary element of being a good citizen, as well as a necessary component of great leadership and management. For example, it’s one of the leadership and management training sets promoted by all business schools. And the current economic recession or depression has a large component of greed and unethical and un-empathetic behavior at its core.

Parents should be teaching empathy to their children even before they’re developmentally capable of it, instead of thinking that a course as part of an M.B.A. training will ever do any good. Since many parents don’t teach empathy, and also in support of those who do, I’m glad that elementary and middle schools are intentionally making that a part of the curriculum, in addition to academic subjects. The key to teaching empathy and virtue is the character of the teacher, not the syllabus or lesson plan.

But teaching at home and in programs at school can’t be expected to solve the problem for every one, even though results in schools in the south Bronx are also encouraging. Many children and teenagers will get it; others won’t. One of the most famous examples of the impossibility of teaching everyone is Alcibiades, a brilliant, rich boy taught by Pericles at home and Socrates at school, who grew up to be unethical, unscrupulous and un-empathetic.

Humans do have free will, but that doesn’t man we stop trying to teach them. We simply try with our eyes wide open. Even in Scarsdale, as the article says, “mean girls are no less mean, and the boys will still be boys.” Also, there’s still “name-calling, gossip and other forms of social humiliation.” Bullies and bullying will always exist.

But now the schools make clear that such behavior is frowned upon. Punishing it can be very difficult because it’s such a tricky area to find appropriate responses. However, the clarity with which we label uncaring and unacceptable behavior gives every student a clear chance to judge the perpetrators and decide whether to try to join the in-crowd, ignore them or stand up for the students who are targeted..

We can’t and shouldn’t count on schools to protect our children from hurt feelings all the time. We must help our children know what’s important to them and whose opinion matters to them. We must also help them develop the inner grit and resilience to know how to protect themselves from verbal harassment as well as from physical abuse.

Stop School Bullies: Fighting Back Can Have Four Rewards

Teach Empathy in Middle School? Can we? Should We?