As a kid I was not endowed with a lot of muscle. Legs OK but chest, in a word, skeletal. When we moved to town, I was nine or ten, and my new school discovered I needed glasses. My folks could not afford anything but the cheapest national health glasses. These were designed to help you see at the cost of any comfort to ears or nose. They also looked, well, gawky.
So what is a four eyed skeleton in any school playground? That is right! A target. Every bully in the place wanted to show how big he (or she) was by beating the four eyed whimp into the ground. Not having a lot of muscle on my chest I did not have the usual amount of upper body strength for my age. This meant my attempts to fight back were feeble. It also meant there was not a lot to pad blows on my chest.
I learned to run and dodge very well. On sprints at school. I was the fastest acceleration and, if I didn't run out of air generally won. I also learned that if I got away outside of the playground to keep running until I was well clear. (This built up my endurance and although I rarely won I did at least finish long distant runs as a teen at school and even completed a couple of marathons later on.) I learned that even if tears were flowing not to cry out or scream as this just made bullies worse. I learned that it made no difference if I stopped resisting and so I always kept trying to fight back as much as I could. I learned though that if I ran towards the kids who wanted to bully me and then dodged them at the last moment, it annoyed them. If I did it a few times they got angry. When they were angry they shouted a lot, shouted really rude things and generally showed themselves up. I learned that after a little while they got fed up of the other kids laughing at them and so stopped picking on me. I also learned that the headmaster didn't want to know about whose fault a fight was. If you were caught fighting you both got the cane. I also learned that if you got the cane three times you were labeled a trouble maker, had to sit near the front of the class and were asked all of the awkward questions. On the plus side I learned that a lot of girls were sympathetic and often got in the way of bullies if they were chasing me. This carried over into my teens.
National health glasses were not built to take that type of treatment. So I usually got the slipper when getting home for having broken my glasses again.
Knowing that I was a bit of a whimp I had to prove to my friends that I wasn't. This meant that I was usually the most daring of our gang. I would climb the highest and ride the fastest. I would go where the others would not dare. This meant of course that I would fall the furthest, hit things the hardest and get caught more. One thing about those days was that no one complained if the policeman smacked a naughty kid and no one complained if someone dragged a kid home to their parents to get their parents to deal with them. Punishment was usually painful and quick but, to be honest, mostly fair. Once it was done, it was done. That was it. None of this nagging for ages afterwards or 'meaningful' talks. In a way it was like trading a deed for a punishment. You weighed it up and decided it the punishment was going to worth the being naughty.
You learned to be responsible for your own stuff. If you lost it you were punished. If you mucked it up (beyond reasonable wear and tear) you were punished. It did not matter if another kid had nicked it or if another kid had broken it. You were responsible. So why wasn't mum punished when I broke her vase?