'AITA for explaining the consequences of his actions to my son?'
"AITA for explaining the consequences of his actions to my son?"
My family lives in Canada. This is important. My kid was being bullied at school. He is a big kid and I have always told him to resolve his problems with words. I've told him to report bullying to teachers, and if they don't listen to tell the principal.
Also to tell me and his mom so we can follow up. My son's after school program is a taekwondo class. Also important. He's been in taekwondo since he was in kindergarten. He also plays hockey.
There are a group of kids at his school that have been AHs to my kid and his friends. My kid did the right thing and told the teacher monitoring recess. She told him that the kids were new to Canada and that they didn't know how to fit in yet.
He went to the principal and got told pretty much the same thing. So he told his mom. She wanted to go confront the parents and she likely would have ended up in custody. She's Irish. Like real Irish from Ireland not Marky Mark Irish. I told her I would take care of it.
I made an appointment to talk to the principal and teacher along with my son. I went into the meeting with a simple goal. To stop the bullying. The principal and teacher both tried the same excuse on me. That these kids were newcomers and they weren't fully aware of how Canada was different from their home country and what they saw on American TV.
I asked what was being done to stop it. They said they had talked to the boys. I asked if the parents had been brought in and talked to. He said no. Okay. So I turned to my kid and I explained that in Canada kids under twelve years old CANNOT be charged with a crime. In fact they can't even be arrested. Worst case scenario if anything happened he might have to do some community service.
The principal and teacher went crazy telling me that I can't tell him that. I asked them if I was lying? They both shut up. I pointed to them and told my kid to remember that they didn't say I was wrong. I told him to tell me in a week if he was still being bullied.
My understanding is that all the bullies parents were called in and told to control their children. The bullies were also given library detention instead of recess for a month. I'm satisfied with the result but the teacher and principal seemed upset. My wife thinks I should have given him the information privately.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
No, I think you did good by your son. You asked the appropriate questions, you asked that more be done, and when the school showed little to no willingness to step up, you informed your son that he could stand up for himself. More importantly, you put the school on notice without uttering a threat or a single word for that matter.
NTA. I'm also Canadian and I've worked as a consultant in the school system. The school simply did not care to step in and act because they hate having to deal with parents and telling them their kids are AH bullies (no, seriously, this is the reason. I've interviewed and had dozens of meetings across multiple schools/teams. This is the chief common factor).
You didn’t encourage violence you just simply explained the legal reality of things after the school repeatedly failed to protect your kid. The moment administrators hide behind excuses instead of stopping bullying, parents are allowed to be blunt.
The fact that action only happened after that conversation proves the system wasn’t working. They are CLEARLY TAH and you definitely escalated the situation to where it needed to be for them to act.
I'm American, and I love that this was the fastest end to school bullying, hopefully, anyway. Not the AITA.
Human-Lab-921 (OP)
It's over. My kid is only ten but he is the same size as his thirteen year old cousins. They tried messing with him when they were playing hockey. They play nice now.
You handled it PERFECTLY!!! Saying that to your son in front of the teacher and principal was fantastic!! If you had told your son in private, I'll just bet that the principal and teacher would NOT have called in the parents. Your son would have continued to be bullied. GOOD FOR YOU!!!
If you had told it to your son privately there would have been a fight. You basically told the teachers there might be a fight and they took it seriously. Goal achieved.
NTA, your wife missed the point. Yes, it's good to empower your kid to stand up for himself, but the message was for the adults in the room. It was "sort this out now, or maybe sort out a much bigger issue later."
Here's the thing. By NOT giving him the information privately, you probably prevented the situation where he could put that knowledge to use. NTA. Brilliant move, actually.
You did the right thing. I once got called in for a meeting because my kid told his teacher that I said to him “you never ever start a fight, but you always finish one “. Principal and teacher called me in asked me if I said that and I said of course I did. And I will say it again to him.
They were stunned. I said to them are we done here? They had no idea how to respond. At which point I explained that if the school wasn’t able to prevent kids from harming others I had no other choice but to make clear to my kid he would have to defend himself. They told me they disapproved of my approach. I told them I didn’t care.