I don't condone violence...but in this case...

2pm today my phone rang...the voice on the other end was familiar. It was the Principal from my 12 y/o's elementary school.

The conversation went as follows:

"Hi Melissa, this is D.W. from XYX and I'm calling today because we had an incident at school today with "T"."

I thought, what in the world did she do now? Just a month ago, she caused the school to be on lock down because no one could find her and her friend...ends up they were in the bathroom trying to work out boy drama and were late to class.

Anyway, I said, "Hi."

She follows with, "T came in and told me she was being teased by a boy today and that he's been teasing her for a while now and today she finally had enough and took matters into her own hands."

I gulp...thinking, what did she do?

I said, "Ok..."

"She slapped this boy across the face...and between you and I, if he would have said to me what he said to her at this age, I would have slapped him too." "However, I have to discipline her for this."

I said, "I totally understand." I went on to say, "This is probably partly my fault. I was teased growing up and have told my kids that if I would have just smacked one person growing up I probably would have saved myself years of teasing."

The Principal said, she understood and that she was teased as a kid as well.

After discussing appropriate disciplinary action, we decided that T should lose a couple of recesses. I agreed that it was a fair punishment. After all, even though I'm proud of my daughter for standing up for herself, she can't go around hitting people when they piss her off.

When all was said and done, an incident report was filled out and a sexual harassment report was filled out against the boy as well.

When she got home from school, we had a short discussion and I asked who it was that was teasing her. Come to find out it was a friend of hers! I told her, she was no longer going to have him as a friend. This incident could have gotten her suspended.

Apparently, all is good now. The boy is sorry and so is my daughter, however, I'm putting my foot down when it comes to them being friends outside of school.

What would you have done?