I think its perfectly fine. If a boy slaps a little girl he deserves a good kick in the nuts. How else is he going to learn?

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I say she did the right thing. Congratulate her! If she hit back it could escalate to the point of one of them getting really hurt. I taught my sons (not that they listened) to talk, walk, or run from a fight. If they could do none of that then they had my permission to use any means at their disposal to take care of the problem. When it comes to fights, if you can set rules, you don't need to fight. Sometimes the best defense is to walk away.

This Martial Arts video might help make my point.

Yes!
Or else your child will continue to get picked on, my dad always told me to fight back unless it's at school than he said either wait till after school to settle it or tell a teacher

Physical violence is never appropriate if there is another option- if you're fighting for your life, its one thing, but in this situation it would just escalate the violence. She did exactly the right thing by reporting him.

As a practical matter, if she had hit back, the school may very well have punished her as well.

I'd say hell yes. Violence does beget violence and we are allowed to defend ourselves for a reason. If someone hit you, would you hit them back? it should be no different with your child no matter what your answer was.

It is appropriate for the weaker party (the girl) to respond in a non-injuring way. The girl will not be able to injury the boy by hitting him.

However, it would be inappropriate if the girl responded by using a knife on the boy, poking the boy in the eye, or hitting him in the nuts.

No. You're far better than to instruct your children to hurt others. Sure, as parents we want to make sure that our children are okay all the time, but it doesn't give us the right to say it's okay to hit others if they started it. It would be appropriate to tell her to just stay away from children like that. She'll be better that way instead of instilling violence into their heads. Peace!

When your child gets hurt or bullied by another it is easy (and normal) to feel upset to the extent to which you would love to recruit your child to hit, kick, or slap back. However, resolving violent action with more violence is never appropriate. It is similar to your child hitting you in the face and you spanking the child in return and saying "Don't you hit me ever again!". What you are teaching the child is that it is okay to respond violently in heated moments where you lose control. It can also be a confusing message to the child. If you teach her never to hit a friend but then tell her to "only" hit somebody back when she gets hit, she may not understand where to set the limits or how the situations differ. Your daughter actually did the right thing to report the negative behavior of her peer to the supervising adult. It is after all the responsibility of the adult watching the children to resolve any conflict in a helpful, non-violent way that allows the children to learn appropriate responses to similar situations in the future. It is important that the adult also sit the children down and help them talk to each other to determine the cause of the conflict that led to the hitting or kicking. You can also step in as the parent and request a meeting with the parents of the other child (especially if the child is a “repeat offender”  and has hit your daughter in the past or continues to bully her after this incident). The children should also be required to talk to each other to find out how their behavior affected the other and to apologize. For instance, your daughter could tell the other child that it hurt her feelings as well as her body when she was hit and kicked and that she has trouble trusting that child now. The other child may say that something your daughter did upset him enough to hit and kick. This can also be helpful since knowing the trigger in children who repeatedly fight with other peers can help put in place preventive measures that aim towards circumventing similar situations that would result in a future incident. Sure, employing these strategies may require more time and involvement from parents, teachers, and children, but it may provide more positive results than simply telling your child to “sock” him back. If your daughter were to use violence herself then there is no telling how long the violence between the two children would continue. The boy may not like getting hit back and resort to harsher physical violence and really hurt your daughter, or your daughter may respond in a similar manner and really hurt the boy. Also, if your daughter gets caught by a teacher or other adult in charge, she may get in trouble for hitting, especially if the boys’ behavior went unnoticed. Also, ask yourself this: if your daughter were the one to hit another child first, out of frustration or a similar reason, would you want the other child to hit her back in revenge? If the answer is no, then you should not tell her to do this to another child, no matter how hurtful her getting hit may be to you. Chances are great that children do not take this type of incident as hard as you, the parent, do. Finally, I would also like to say that parents of daughters tend to take a violent incident more to heart if the “hitter” was a boy. Sometimes people think it is not as bad if a girl hits a boy, then if a boy hits a girl. I am speaking from personal experience. I have a 5 year old son whom I have taught over and over not to hit or hit back but to tell a grownup in charge. He has gotten hit in the past by frustrated girls that he was playing with and he has oftentimes been told (by the girls parents) not to hit the girls back (simply because they are girls). But this was confusing and very frustrating to my son. He realized he was stuck between a rock and a hard place because he had his feelings hurt and then was bullied by a girl who thought it was okay for her to hit a boy who was thought to be a tougher breed than a girl. Finally he was so fed up that one day he just hit back and doing so he was the one getting trouble (with teacher and later us, the parents). Now he is somewhat reluctant about playing with girls in general, which is sad. I have also encountered parents who have told their own smaller children to just hit another child to get their way. My son has sometimes been the target of these children and I found it challenging to teach him not to hit back when many other parents actually told their children to hit back, which left my son in the injured and upset position with no way to respond. I have found that sitting two fighting children down and letting them talk it out with the help of a grownup is a much more effective way and does help and the children are most often sorry about their behavior once they find out how much they hurt the other child.

You know....growing up my mom made it very clear to the principals of my schools that she does not expect me to be a punching bag. If someone hit me, I had her permission to defend myself. Now that I am a parent, I am teaching my children the same. It is not okay for them to act like bullies or to "look" for trouble, but I do not expect them to be bullied and allow another individual to physically harm them, ever.

If a boy slapped my daughter in the face, that IS SERIOUS!! I would be at the school the following morning and meeting with the principal and family of the boy. I would also make it clear to all of them that I give her permission to defend herself and permission to have my son defend her also.(They are close in age)

Golden Rule "Treat others the way you want to be treated".

In a time where kids are getting more violent and have access to weapons we need to rethink the defend your self theory. All over the internet you will find statistics of this. Violence by kids as young as 9 years old is severe. Your daughter was so right to handle this situation this way. She handed it over to an adult in charge. If this little boy comes at her again, I would call it assault and take appropriate actions. Bullying is not harmless. What if this kid came after her again and this time had a knife or another type of weapon. then what. I am no longer playing with these situations, not since a 3rd grader pulled a gun in my daughter's school. These kids are armed now, alot of them lost their innocence a long time ago. There are statistics that show that many bullies grow into a life of crime. What if your daughter had fought back and this boy did some serious harm to her? It is happening. Follow up with the adult that your daughter told and find out what is being done to this kid and keep an eye on him the best you can. Also, tell your daughter to stay away from him. And I know that you will think I am crazy but if he targets her again, use more serious measures to stop it. The law no longer looks at these situations as harmless and if they don't then you shouldn't.

I think your daughter did the right thing there, telling a teacher was the right thing to do. Hopefully the boy learned that she (your daughter) will tell a teacher and will not see her as a target.

I have three children, the youngest is 17 but when they were younger I taught them to walk way. Of course we live in a small town, and the schools are 'safe'.

Usually my kids listened but not always. When they have hit each other, they were punished and if they hit another child in school I also punished them using time out when they got home. There never is an excuse for violence.

I do remember when my youngest (kdg) was jumped walking home from school by two 5th graders. My middle child who was in second grade jumped on the two fifth graders and tried to defend his brother he was also beaten up. Both boys came home crying and told me. My daughter a fifth grader went out gathered friends and sought revenge for her brothers. That was a hard one to punish but she had to understand violence is never the answer. Her ploy did work as the other fifth graders knew you don't mess with her little brothers, but it still was not right.

I think your response is a good one. The most important thing is to make sure that your child protects herself but doesn't go looking for trouble. Alot of times it just takes your child standing up for herself, or hitting back to get the bullies attention to leave her alone. Have a long talk with her to make her understand the difference between violence and when it it okay to protect herself. She did the right thing by telling an adult, you should also try and get her to verbally tell the person to leave her alone to try and talk down the situation if that doesn't work then by all means hit them back. Sometimes kids need to get it back to realize they shouldn't be doing that in the first place.

I think tit for tat an eye for an eye and all that. I have always told my kids to defend themselves and even put them in Karate to help do so.