Hi,
Secretly, I was proud of him. In the end, when it was my turn to testify for my son...I told the Judge that I too had been bullied, and if I had the physical power to crush the bully's face, I would have done so in a second. They wanted Nick to at least take anger management...I argued that any kid that would put up with being bullied for 7 months before lashing out, didn't have an anger problem.
The end of the story is that Nick was considered a dangerous person in a fight. I had to go to the school board to get him reinstated into school. It was determined by the school board, that if he got into any more fights...regardless of the circumstances, he would be kicked out of the public school system altogether. Nick was in 8th grade when this happened.
Fast forward to the end of Junior year of high-school...a young girl was being grabbed and groped by three students in a hall, Nick trying to help the girl, took up for her, and the boys got into a fight. It didn't matter how much time had passed, it didn't matter why there was a fight, it didn't matter...it was a fight, and Nick was kicked permanently out of the public school system. He finished school by getting a GED. I didn't have the money to send him to a private school, I doubt they would have accepted him anyway with the reputation of being a dangerous kid, and he really wasn't, but when he fights, it's serious. The boys were not going to rape the girl, they knew each other, she was in no danger, and didn't cry out for help...they were grabbing her rear and boobs and she was yelling at them. Nick just played the unsolicited hero role, and it cost him dearly.
I agree about not allowing children to mature because you coddle them. They need to learn to manage the bullies of the world, they are everywhere, even in the work place. However there are other ways of handling the problem without fists or often in some cases nowadays, weapons. In the end, when it comes to violence, there are no winners.
This is why some no longer help their fellow human being.....They get in trouble as well.