The Journal Times Online - Racine, Wisconsin

It was about 1975 when my mother saw her 4-year-old son being beaten up on the playground.

After getting a teacher, and rescuing the youngster, my Mom, still seething, put her son in the car and began to nicely, yet sternly, lecture the boy. She told him, when another person is hitting you or hurting you and an adult isn’t available to help you, you have a right to defend yourself. You need to hit back.

The youngster looked at his mother and uttered one simple phrase almost 20 years before it became a cliché, "But mom, what would Jesus have done?"

It’s funny how what comes around, goes around. Of course, that youngster was me and 33 years later I’m facing a similar issue and my mother is probably giggling a little in heaven.

I have a 3-year-old son who is a kind-hearted, loving little boy. He loves to play with other children no matter their age. And, when included, he would easily receive an A (a B-plus at the very least) in playing well with others. Within the last year, though, he’s had a little trouble. My son, who is big for his age, was picked on by older children on the playground. They called him names and threw sand in his face and eyes. My son didn’t fight back. He didn’t cry. He just took it, went to the adult supervisor and got cleaned up. He later whispered what happened to his mother in front of the supervisor. The adult supervisor said she would take care of the problem — and to her credit it hasn’t happened again.

I’d say the situation was boys being boys in the Lord of the Flies jungle that is the playground, but it happened again. At the playroom of a health club, a little boy tried to grab a toy from my son. According to the playroom supervisor, my son grabbed the child’s arm and the other boy hit him and taunted him. The supervisor stopped the fighting and my son told the other boy to stop laughing at him. That was about as much as my son wanted to say about the incident. In both cases, my son showed a lot of courage, but there’s no doubt that the incidents had a negative impact on him.

Like any parent, including my mother in 1975, I was frustrated. Before I was a parent, I thought I would handle this by telling my son that if and only if the teachers aren’t protecting you, this is what you needed to do – stand up, pick one of the kids, go after him, fight dirty and just beat on him until the teacher stops him. I believed there would be one fight and kids would back off after one nasty battle. And if I get called into the office, I would back my child and tell the principal or teacher, "If you can’t protect my child, then he’s going to have to do it himself." Of course, that was the strange thinking of a dad-to-be.

I now realize that there needs to be a more diplomatic approach that keeps everyone safe. Especially since you can’t expect a 3-year-old to understand when it’s OK to fight and when it’s best to walk away. Still, all children have a right to defend and protect themselves when an adult isn’t noticing the problem.

So what is the best way to teach a child to do the right thing and still protect himself?