Should Bully Victims Fight Back?

Catherine Adam, a mother from Burnaby, British Columbia says children being bullied should be fighting back, but at what cost? She moved her and her seven-year-old son out of Burnaby and into Port Moody BC because he was being relentlessly bullied at school, however the school systems encourage a "don't hit back" policy which she says is pandering to bullies. The problem is that usually when the victims come forward they're also being punished in the same way the bullies are, but for what?

"The punishing of both the victim and the bully when caught empowers the bullies to escalate and makes the victims reluctant to come forward," Catherine said. "It happened to my son for over two years prior to getting shoved face first into a toilet."


Catherine spoke out about White Rock mom Lara Fominoff, whose six-year-old son fought back when confronted by a much older bully, but received the same punishment. As reporter Cassidy Olivier noted, Fominoff told her son never to start a fight, but if someone started one with him, he had the right to defend himself. A Surrey school district official, however, was quoted as saying violence of any kind is unacceptable and that, if kids are pushed or hit, they're simply supposed to report it to the appropriate authorities.


"I refuse, in eight or 10 years, to be a grieving parent of a teenager who just committed suicide like so many others that have been in the news recently and regularly," Catherine stated in an earlier article. She added that the recent high-profile suicide of Lower Mainland teen Amanda Todd, after prolonged bullying, showed she was absolutely right in refusing to accept the "pap" she felt she was being fed by Burnaby school officials.

"That to me is the absolute root of all this bullshit, that if the kid who is the victim fights back or even reports it, they get punished, too," she said. "And that teaches the bullies right from the age of six that they can get away with this crap."

Shouldn't we be teaching children to stand up for themselves? And not punish them when they're defending themselves against the people who should really be getting punished. If it wasn't for the fact I've seen this happen with people I know I'd question the validity of it because how can schools be so stupid? Even the government has laws for defending yourself which allows "a person to use reasonable force in her or her own defense or the defense of others."





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