The above is edited for brevity. I’m glad your son is safe, that he got the medical help he needed, and got back to the States. It must have been a terrifying situation for you, and I’m glad you got the support you needed here. In retrospect though, I think your son might benefit from some hard truth.

Your description and your analysis don’t add up. You say he was in a foreign country, was blackout drunk to the point of not remembering anything, that he can be incredibly irritating and insulting, and that he got punched in the face for his involvement in a situation to the point where someone would break his teeth.

At the same time, you say you don’t blame him, call the other guy an as$hole and a criminal, and hope he learns to read his travel insurance.

IMHO, you’re not doing him any favors by minimizing his responsibility for this situation. The other guy might be an a$shole, maybe he’s a criminal. I don’t know Guatemalan law, but if someone is starting $hit in a bar and gets punched for it, it wouldn’t surprise me if the police would look the other way - especially in a culture where machismo is so much more important than in the States.

If I were in your shoes, I would hope he learns a lot more than to read his travel insurance. I would hope he learns:

1. Don’t get blackout drunk in a foreign country (or at all).

2. Insulting and irritating others has consequences - it may not always be a mouthful of broken teeth, but it’s certainly going to affect his future relationships, job opportunities, and almost every area of life where he interacts with others.

3. Whether or not the other guy responded appropriately, it sounds like he instigated the situation. Rather than deflect blame and shield him, admit he is either completely or partially to blame for getting broken teeth and for being injured in a foreign country with nobody to help him.

You defend his actions by claiming he’s not old enough to understand these things. I call bull$hit. When I was his age (and far younger), I knew how to take responsibility for my actions and realize my part in a situation where I had messed up. Maybe something wasn’t completely “my fault,” but if all I thought was that the other guy was completely to blame, I wouldn’t know how to change my future actions in order to avoid the same thing (or worse) from happening again.

I’d say it’s your job as his parent to help him understand these things. I can’t see into your past or your present relationship with him to know whether you can speak hard truth into his life, but hopefully you can. Your response to him doesn’t have to be judgmental or harsh, but the information can be presented in love and of course you have his best interests at heart. Whether or not he listens and accepts responsibility for his part in the fiasco is on him. You can’t control his response, but you can help avoid a situation that enables it to happen again in the future.