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THE QUESTION

Now that September's here, I'm happy to be sending the little ones back to school. But I'm a little uneasy about it this time because I feel like I'm handing one of my sons over to a bully who terrorized him all last year.

When he last bullied my son, we ended up having a meeting with the principal. She told the bully to stop and threatened him with suspensions and all the rest, but my son says he simply altered his tactics.

So I took it upon myself to have a word or two with the kid, and the cheeky bugger gave me nothing but attitude. He even hinted that he'd make my boy more of a target this year, seeing as he "had to get his daddy involved." It was all I could do to stop myself from throttling him.

But now I'm afraid I've set my kid up for a hellish school year. Apart from moving him to another school, how can I make sure my son isn't walking into class with a bull's eye that I've painted on his back?

THE ANSWER

Bullying is a tough one because it pushes all your primordial buttons, and yet you feel powerless.

Last year, after a baseball game, a kid at my son's school - a real pituitary case who had all the other kids trembling in fear - pushed my son down and started whaling on him with first base. He kept hitting him and hitting him and wouldn't stop. And if you've ever seen a regulation first base, it's not light - it's big and heavy, like a bag of fertilizer. My kid could have been seriously injured.

So off to the principal's office I went.

She called in the bully, he lolled around in his chair, rolled his eyes, spoke in monosyllables and muttered an apology when forced to.

The principal explained to him that what he did was wrong and asked him if he understood why.

"Yeah," he said, staring at his sneakers. But it wasn't clear how much of her lecture was really sinking in, because when she asked him a few minutes later if he would hit my son next time there was a conflict, he said: "Probably."

That's when I leaned forward in my chair and said: "Listen, kid, you touch him again, it'll be between me and you, and there won't be any principals or teachers around, you get it?"

My wife, Pam, laughed at me when I told her about this later. "You said that in front of the principal? Anyway, what are you going do, beat up an 11-year-old kid? You could go to jail for that."

"I know, it was dumb," I said sheepishly. "I couldn't help it, I just saw red."

Later, the principal told me that other parents (read dads) had also threatened this kid, and one was even going to call the cops on him - so it wasn't just me. But Pam's right: Cross-generational vigilantism, tempting though it may seem in the heat of the moment, isn't the answer. Calling the cops isn't appropriate, either, unless the situation gets extreme.

And while the notion of confronting the bully's parents may seem like a good idea, I'd stay away from that, too. You could wind up pushing all the wrong kinds of buttons, which could lead to a thermonuclear exchange and a much bigger battle than you want.

Schools may hate me for saying this, but I think the wisest course of action is to keep applying pressure to the principal and the teachers, to make sure they watch this kid like a hawk.

Remember that when you hand over your kid to a school, the staff are acting in loco parentis - literally, in the place of the parent - and that actually carries a certain amount of legal weight. If whomever is supposed to be supervising at the time is found to be negligent, and your child is injured, that person could be liable.

It may help, if there are other concerned parents, to organize them and present your case as a group. Let the teachers know you're watching them and they will in turn watch the bully - we all know bullies are cowards and don't like the limelight.

If that still doesn't work - well, let me tell you a little story. When I was 7, I was terrorized every day by a nine-year-old bully named Morgan. He would take me up to a tree house, pull down my pants, spank me in front of his "girlfriend," take all my money, force me to tell my parents I'd lost it and just generally blot out the sun and suck the joy out of my young life - until I befriended a big, tough, 11-year-old kid named Earl. Earl quickly sorted out my Morgan problem and the sun shone in my life once again

Now, I can't counsel your son to befriend another kid just because he needs a little muscle. All I'm saying is it worked for me, once upon a time.

Whatever course of action you decide upon, have a heart-to-heart with your kid. He may be feeling resentful that you blundered into his world and made things worse for him, if that is indeed the case. Explain to him what you did was out of love and concern for his safety.

Remember, this too will pass, and in this tangled welter of relationships - him, you, the teachers, the principal, the bully - yours with him is the most important. This is one of those things you just need to get through together.

David Eddie is an author and screenwriter. He has published two books, Chump Change and Housebroken: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad.