I'm happy your kids can handle themselves in a physical confrontation. My son's big for his age, and my daughter has really taken to her martial arts classes, so I have high hopes for them too. But if I found out that my kids were responding to low-grade violence by engaging in it themselves, they'd get punished.
The law doesn't punish you for defending yourself, why the hell would you expect your kids to live to a standard that nobody else is subjected to?
(1) Because regardless of whether the standard is fair, in real life, off the playground, violence is as likely as not going to break against my kids as it is to break for them. This "standing up and fighting the bully" mythology is exactly that. The outcomes are simply better if you avoid violence and use the other tools at your disposal.
(2) Because some standards are intrinsically correct, regardless of what the law allows.
Are you Buddhist by any chance? Just curious.
It's very valuable in playground life, though. The value is that they prevent future low-grade violence by engaging in a bit of low-grade violence themselves.
> I want my kids handling problems smart, and "fighting back" and standing up to bullies on their own terms is playing to lose.
Nonsense. It works really well, in my experience. The playground is not like an office, so your extrapolation to adult behaviour doesn't apply. Teenagers are nearly adult physically, but still unformed mentally and ethically/morally.
> Fuck that shit. If my son tells me he's quitting band because he's getting pushed around over it, I am going fucking ballistic.
How's that going to help him? If he knows that you'll react that way, he likely won't even tell you, and the bullying will continue, in secret.
Here's what I'm going to tell my daughter:
1) No one has the right to attack you. If you are attacked, and you can fight back, do it! If the odds are not in your favour, try to flee to a safe area / allies. Don't worry about suspension / expulsion, etc. I will back you up.
Try to keep the violence proportional, unless it's a do or die situation. I.e. shoving vs. shoving, punching vs. punching, don't use improvised weapons unless they do. OTOH err on the side of survival.
2) If anyone ever threatens serious violence, like rape or death threats, tell me. These are not joking matters. It doesn't mean we'll go ape-shit and over-react, but we need to know it's happening in order to figure out whether it's a real threat.
3) If you're being bullied electronically, then tell us, but never ever react to the bully. Don't feed the troll. If the person can't actually reach out and physically hurt you, don't give them anything to work with.
If you teach your kids to never respond to violence with violence, you're setting them up to be bullied, which will affect them throughout their lives. Authority figures can't always (and often won't) save you. Sometimes you need to fight first and ask questions later.