Q: My son and his girlfriend were having an argument. My son was later assaulted by acquaintances of his girlfriend. He's afraid that if they know that he reported them, then someone will retaliate and the situation will become much worse. Please give me some advice as to how to advise him or how I could report this to make you all aware if something else were to happen to my childor his friend.

A: Obviously it is difficult to anticipate if your son could be assaulted at a later time or not. The best advice I can give you is to make sure your son tries to protect himself by simply preventing situations like that from ocurring: Travelwith another friend(s) when possible (safety in numbers is true!), keep a cell phone handy and call 911 if he feels threatened. Trying to avoid the sitauation and the hostile parties is best- staying away from a known problem house or persons who might cause him harm, and not trying to make the situation worse by egging the others on- name calling, threatening to get revenge, etc are the best ways to try to prevent afuture attack by these acquaintances.