I actually offered protection to many friends, being over 6 ft tall and 180 lbs at 16. Never let it be known among the Geek community that you are offering bullying asylum! I became like the freaking Godfather to the Geeks!
But really, it is behavior from parents like this that CREATES bullying victims. Your 11 year old son is having a problem with another 11 year old boy? Do you reach for the Tazer, or do you take your son to Karate class?
Teach first. All else fails, intervention. Thugs (bully's) these days are not old type, mean and rude and sometimes physical, they are cruel beyond what you and I ever saw when growing up. They are sadists. They are like rabid dogs and need to be put down quickly and forcefully.
Childhood spats and arguments are par for growing up, bully behavior has never been tolerated and never should be.
"My older brother was quite the bully amid the hippie children we grew up among, little 'Moonshadow' never had anybody say anything mean or hateful to them their entire little hippie life; and my brother sought to correct that."
You must be so proud that your bully brother had the maturity, insight, compassion and understanding to understand he needed to be a bully to help other shildren, not for himself mind you, but for them. He was gawd of all the other children and duty called. Come on, that was classic narcissist bully behavior and he needed to be put down for his abuse, and that is what bully behavior is, abuse and a crime. The fact you provided "protection" to others proves you know bully behavior is cruel and wrong and criminal, and what if the bullied child has no such protector as you, friend or parent? What then? Hey, I guess that child is simply out of luck and should be culled from the Lord of the Flies herd.