firsthand experience with school nonviolence policies

You need to move. If you aren't going to fight, the best idea is to run and live another day. Your son is going to get killed if he stays in that town. I'll repeat, Dave will kill your son because he knows your son won't defend himself.

My kid unintentionally decked me before kindergarten age. Now, and with a black belt, he can surely do some real harm when he really wants to. His hobby is breakdancing... those guys are *hard*. I kind of read between the lines that if the other kid really laid into him that he would probably have held his own and then some. However, we all did feel that he did not display enough common sense, at several junctures. We sure hope he learned now. I do agree we all have to be more careful now. Talked to the kid today and he knows... especially in school zone...

Am considering private school in next county for next school year, great academics, security fence, but mucho $$$, and he is displaced from all his buddies. Happened to me in high school myself, not enjoyable.

I have to agree with bvw's advice about the restrianing order. May I suggest as an alternative to homeschooling (which isn't always condusive to working parents' schedules) that you check into private Christian schools in your area. My two high school aged children have attended Christian school since the first grade and we are extremely pleased with the quality of their education, both morally and academically.

If I my son had faced a similar situation as yours, I believe I'd enroll him in a karate class where he would learn to defend him as a last possible solution. I can only imagine the damage to one's self-esteem after having kneeled to this hideous child's abuse. Good luck to you all.

Getting a lawyer to do a restraining order is the first thing I tried. Could not find anyone so far.

He's already enrolled. And he is the leader of a break dance team at school, with no shortage of buddies, so it's the other kid's lack of self esteem that I believe supplied the motive of jealosy of our son's popularity at school. Supposedly the other kid was normally well behaved, but just went off the deep end and now has that felony rap hanging over the remainder of his life. The entire situation is depressing to contemplate.

Kneeling at the feet of a man with a baseball bat is a severe error in judgment. I believe he would have been seriously hurt if someone hadn't intervened. The bat slapping would have escalated until your son would have been sufficiently wrecked to the point where the bully would have received props for the "marking" of your son. I know a guy who lost an eye to a marking for a gang initiation.

In short, you dodged a bullet. I bet you won't get to dodge the next one. Either take the bully out or move.

Agreed (x 3).

In short, you dodged a bullet. I bet you won't get to dodge the next one. Either take the bully out or move.

I can't afford to move every time someone looks at me the wrong way. If I did that, I and my family would be in hock to the real estate salespeople and bankrupt. And the bullies would have accomplished their goal, which is to distract my son and his family to the point that he or we are not functioning anymore. IOW, he wins.

We can't take him out preemptorily because that would be vigilanteism. If what you mean is to defend one's self, yeah, I guess that is the plan.

News flash: we have recently learned that the kid has moved out of the home he was living in. So I guess he kind of disrupted his own life and that of his folks, instead. We're still here and all OK so far, knock on wood.

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