I know you said that your DH won't agree to putting SS anywhere other than in your home. But I have to say that with the aggression your SS has shown at home with your DH, toward your children, & now at school, he is making your home a dangerous place for everyone in it.

Given that you know there is history of your kids teasing him, & teasing is what initiated the physical altercation at school, I truly would be concerned for your children & their safety.

You can't watch him every minute of every day, & it would a terrible thing for you to have to live with if he were to snap on them.

Your husband MUST look at the situation realistically. Why is it more important to him to tiptoe around SS's feelings than to watch out for the physical safety of your family???

Clearly what you've been doing hasn't been helping. The longer it continues this way, the more he will EXPECT to be the priority in your home. It isn't fair for the rest of your family to have to cower to his fits & his feelings all the time. It isn't fair for everyone to have to tiptoe around him because he's fragile.

Your children deserve to be in a safe home envrionment.

I truly feel that if your DH isn't willing to look beyond one child to consider the needs of the rest of his family, it is your responsibility as a mother to make a home that is safe for the ones you are responsible to. I don't typically advocate leaving a marriage because things get tough. Your situation goes beyond getting tough. It is dangerous.

Edited to add: With the history given, your SS has needs that will be hard to get help for in a public school. Public schools are loaded with average kids who pick & tease. I don't excuse the behavior, but it's a given that it will be there. The teachers are there to teach. They are responsible for keeping order in their classrooms, but like parents, they cannot MAKE a child stop taunting. They cannot force children to get along. With the nature of your SS's issues, there has to be a more suitable place, where he will have a better opportunity to apply himself & progress.

This is probably not the input you were looking for .... however, congrats on SS standing up for himself. I got picked on a bit up until 7th grade because I was mellow and basically not interested in fighting. In fact, I was afraid to fight so I always just laughed off the bullies and went on with my day.

Until one day I had had enough. My parents had given me a brand new pair of very cool jeans (Levi’s Elephant Bells, hey it was the late 70’s and they were very cool) and on the first day I wore them to school a kid ran full speed across the quad after lunch and jumped on my back. I fell forward and ripped holes in both knees of my jeans. As soon as I stood up a second kid did the same. I jumped up quickly and punched him in the face and knocked him out cold. I had been in martial arts for more than a year and I split his bottom lip in two from the middle of his lip to nearly the tip of his chin. He had two flaps of face hanging on either side of his bottom teeth which were clearly visible through the 1.5 - 2" gap in his lower lip. I then turned to the first guy and went after him, he threw up his hands and backed off and said "I am done, I am sorry".

I was called to the Principles office where the principle just looked at me, glanced at my file, shook his head and said "I don't even know your name. You have been in my school all year, you are no trouble, you make decent grades, what happened?". I told him what happened and he said, "Sounds like they deserved it" and suspended them both for a few days. I had ZERO repercussions. I was defending myself. I just did it in a manner that would ensure that no one gave me crap ever again. I had several people approach me after that to tell me that I had surprised them.

I started getting invitations to the cool kid parties after that. Interestingly the kid I hit ended up being a pretty good friend the next year. I went with his family to their mountain cabin several times that winter and the next.

I thought I was going to suffer severely since the kid that I maimed was the younger brother of the 9th Grade JR high varsity cheer leading captain. A few days later she approached me in the hall. I apologized for hurting her brother. She said "don't be sorry, he was wrong and once he got back from the cosmetic surgeon getting his lower lip fixed my dad spanked the crap out of him."

I had a whole bunch more respect after that. I ended up trying out for football and making the Varsity team in 8th grade. I would not have had the confidence had I not learned to stand up for myself.

Standing up for me was the turning point in my social standing. From then on I was definitely in the popular tier rather than the middle tier and it has stayed that way for more than 30yrs. I am not violent. I can count on less than one hand the number of fights I had in Jr. High and HS. I have had none since. But I also do not take crap from people either. The only other particularly notable fight I had was in HS against a kid who later became one of the Texas Seven. That one was much closer in result but I did not lose. I suppose considering how he turned out that I was very lucky.

I would suggest that you and DH sit down with SS and explain to him that standing up for his self is a good thing but he needs to understand that fighting in general is a last resort and not a good thing. You also need to explain to him that people who pick on younger, smaller and weaker people are not brave and he can never do that to anyone particularly his Sibs (bio, step, half or otherwise).
Good luck.

Your DH is being negligent in NOT putting SS in some type of residential treatment. I mean what is it going to take? Forget your DH throwing around threats of suing the school, he should be more worried about who is going to be suing him when your SS finally snaps and does something that could have been prevented if your DH would grow a pair.

That is why I am try to make do by separating Ss from my kids.

You ARE being negligent.... you state that you try to keep SS seperated from your children at home, that you are concerned for YOUR children's safety when it comes to SS, but yet you send him to public school for him to be with OTHER people's children and expect that the teacher in a classroom of 30+ children is going to be the watchdog?

I'd like to start by saying I understand what it's like to have a child (my SS8) who is bullied & seemingly takes it forever until one day he snaps. Your SS obviously has other issues but in the case with my SS8, he was bullied A LOT by other kids last year & he ended up popping a boy that wouldn't stop picking on him...they both got suspended for 3 days (SS for reacting the way he did & the other kid for being a bully).

Saying that however, I have to say that two weeks ago, you blogged that "I wish Ss would defend himself. He just stands and takes it. We have tried and tried to make him defend himself."...he has done just that & now you don't trust him around "your kids"?? In the blog I'm referring to, you stated that your kids were BULLYING him! Saying horrible & hurtful things to him over HIS dog! I feel for him because (it seems to me) that no matter what he does, it's not good enough. You can't expect him to put up with your kids (& others) being horrible to him for ever! Snapping is what happens with kids who tend to not react...they take it & they take it until one day, they snap...bloodied lips are to be expected.

IMHO, a bloodied lip is to be expected when a bully continues putting someone else down & all that happens to the "bully" is a stern "talking to"...

I'm not saying that I condone violence, but come on now...these are kids & kids fight...bullying is just a VERY good reason to pop someone else (if you can't find another way to MAKE THEM STOP!)