What Do You Teach Your Children About Standing up to 'Agression'?

I tell my son, who is 5, to do what you did and have told him that since he was a little one. And yes, I have him tell the teacher as well. The teachers need to be aware, because it is their job to enforce proper behavior at school. They can't do it if they don't know about it.

Yes, if he's old enough to tell the teacher he should. Also, he should always say "stop" etc. I'm also a strike back type mom. My kids know never to attack anyone, always to go to the aid of kids getting bullied, always to give a warning before hitting back, AND they have full permission to hit back. My daughter is six and son is 4. Their Tae Kwon Do teacher even teaches a class about how to fight back when a bully has ignored your demands to stop physically touching you aggressively-as in hitting, kicking etc. My son did defend himself once when he was 2 1/2 from a 3yo kid who was always hitting him at the gym daycare. I told the mom my son had permission to defend himself. He finally hit him back! The kid left him alone after that of course.

Karate! I think all children should take martial arts... then again maybe that sounds a little scary. They might finally turn the tide against me in my home.

Never hit first, but give it 3 tries - 1st time, verbally say "No do not do that", 2nd time, tell an adult/teacher, 3rd time it's gone too far, defend yourself - then tell an adult.

I used to role play with the boys to help teach them what to do. Basically we practived how to be really firm in your "no' and 'stop that'. The next step was to tell an adult. If the kid still would not stop I would tell them to hit the boy, or girl, back.
It gets more tricky as the kids are getting older I am finding. I am leaving the "tell and adult" part up to their discretion. I want my boys to be able to defend themselves in the moment too. So I tell them if they are ever hit by another child they should hit back if they need to.

My daughter is one of those kids who if you hit her, you'd better be prepared to duck & run because she's going to make you take what you dish out. That gets her into a lot of trouble at school, as teachers tend to not notice things like that until someone howls. Soooo, she'll get in trouble for her self-defense. I've tried and tried to get her to tell the teacher vs. retaliating or to tell them that isn't nice...can't say that's been all that successful. And truthfully, I think that some things should be settled between kids themselves and truthfully that sometimes means that a kid gets back what he gave. It's a fine line...you don't want to teach your child to be a tattletale and do want them to stand up for themselves, but you don't want them to get in trouble or hurt someone either.

Great job teaching him to say "That's not right!" and YES, he should tell the teacher and you should talk to the teacher every time you witness it. the teacher needs to have a plan to try to stop this. Three yr olds are like that but good preschools work hard to prevent it.

My children are 5 and 2. First, they say something to the affect of "No" (that's not right, stop that, NO, whatever). Second, they tell the teacher. If it is a problem that happens regularly, stay away from that person. Third, try to remove yourself from the situation (play somewhere else, go to an adult, make them laugh, whatever. Fourth, physically defend yourself.
My 5 year old practices kung fu and his sifu teaches a lot of restraining, blocking, etc. He may be a little boy, but he can grab my wrist and twist to where I can't move and I know that he can handle himself without having to hit...but he's learned how to hit as well. He has NEVER had an altercation where he's had to hit yet, but he has had situations with bullies where he's blocked them. I was very proud of him when he was 4 and a bully was pushing children down left and right. He went to Joseph and Joe said "Hey! Don't do that!" and the bully looked at him, then went at my 1 year old son. I jumped up to go intervene, but Joseph stepped in front of his brother and said "Don't touch my baby brother" and the bully tried to step around him, but Joseph just stepped with him (still blocking the little one) and said "Don't touch my baby brother". The kid got mad and swung at Joseph several times, but Joseph blocked every one, in perfect defensive stance. I stopped and watched, and the bully got frustrated and left after he wasn't able to land a single punch. I was proud that he was not only able to verbally speak up for himself, and his little brother, but also defended himself physically. He will not hit someone unless it's real important to do so though. That, thankfully, hasn't come up. He knows that it is NOT ok to do kung fu unless he must. He knows he'd get in trouble for fighting just to fight. But if he's done the first 3 steps, then he must do the 4th and I'm confident that he's capable.
We saw a video a month or so ago where there was a soccer game not far from here and some girl tripped on another. The one that fell jumped up and just started pounding the other girl who was taken by surprise, punching, kicking, pulling hair, it was ridiculous. I showed it to Joseph and said "SERIOUSLY---if this ever happens to you, you beat them until they pee their pants, or until an adult can come to help stop it. DO NOT just lay there and take it like that". I made sure he understood. Martial Arts, if taught at a good school with a good teacher, is great at instilling confidence as well as teaching fighting skills, defensive techniques, and self discipline. I can't say enough about what it's done for my son (and, it's just fun for him---he really enjoys it).
As for your son's situation: YOU tell your teacher to start paying better attention because if it's happening regularly, it's not good enough! My son was in daycare 3 days a week and we removed him last year (he was 4) because he kept coming everyday with stories of this one child hitting, pushing, throwing rocks, etc. He said he told the kid to stop, but it was everyday. I went and spoke to the teacher about it once. It didn't stop. So I went and spoke to the administrator and the teacher together, and we watched on the playground. I asked about my son's behavior, is he taunting, is he teasing, is he trying to instigate something (they said no). I asked if he was just being ridiculously sensitive, but that wasn't the case either. Turned out, the kid wasn't even in Joseph's class but they played on the playground at different times. I said "OK, then how's this? They are not getting along, it's not working. He tells me stuff all the time, he's told you, I've already spoken to you about this before. If they're not in the same class and it's just playground stuff (twice a day) then I am requesting that you direct one or both of them to areas opposite each other. It shouldn't be hard to keep one child on one end of the playground and another elsewhere, and it was much better for 2 weeks. Then it went back to normal, and I removed my child from that daycare.

First of all, tell the teacher what you saw. And if you see it happen again, go and tell the school administrator/principle. The teachers should be supervising well enough to be heading this off.

Then, role play with your child. Take some toys and act it out. Help him use his words "No!" or "Stop!" in a loud voice. And have the toys tell a toy (that is standing in for the teacher or mom & dad) what happened.

If you see it and no one else is interceding, jump in and say firmly, "No. We do not hit/kick/push. Hitting/kicking/pushing hurts people and it is not okay to hurt people." Don't be angry/yell, just say in the firm "MOM" voice. And remove the stick. And then you immediately tell a teacher.