The Fight

It was Mair’s second day at her new school.

She wanted to play with the boys! They don’t hold much fear for her, given all her older siblings. She could keep up well with them, in fact she said they were quite cross how fast she could run.

The play then got boisterous, or so she related back to me.

‘They started to scratch me and pull my hair and then some of them punched me.’

‘Oh my goodness Mair, did you report them to the teacher?’ I said in horror.

‘Well I punched them back first, Mum and then I did!”.

‘Oh what did they say? Did you get into trouble?”.

‘Well Mum’, Mair said with her hands on her hips. ’They had to stand on the red line.’

‘What about you?’ I said.

‘She only told me off, cause I couldn’t punch that hard’.

So, what to say to my feisty indignant 6 year old?

25 years ago, when I first started on the journey of motherhood, I advocated non violence, and told my first child to turn the other cheek.

She did, until the night I was bathing her and I distinctly saw a full set of teeth marks in her arm.

When interrogated she told me Jodie’s teeth had somehow found their way there. On closer questioning it transpired Jodie had been systematically bullying her for a while.

So I changed tactic. The teacher just dismissed the incidents so intervention was called for and Abigail was told in no uncertain terms, whilst we did not agree with fighting, the next time this child came near her, to give her one hell of a kick with her shoes (Dr Martins!).

She did.

Jodie never went near her again!

The teacher called me in and was fairy disgusted that I advocated it, and punished Abigail. We accepted the punishment as schools cannot be seen to be promoting this, however secretly we discussed the incident and agreed that sometimes the end justified the means.

Having watched another of our children undergo years of bullying before they stood up for themselves I am afraid my views have changed.

I digress.

I congratulated Mair for sticking up for herself and not letting them just walk over her. I then explained that it was wrong to hit people but if she was doing it too defend herself then we felt this was okay. I tried to explain that if she chose to hit back, then unfortunately the school would punish her, so she would have to think carefully about her actions.

It is so hard to watch your child be victimised by another child, or group of children. It is equally hard to watch pupils endure this low level of violence as well. I am glad my children can stick up for themselves. It is a hard line to sometimes know what to say.

I must admit that I did smile at the image of my tiny little knobbly kneed girl give these boys a punch!