James Jones is a father of a middle-school girl with cerebral palsy. Other than this, he’s a pretty average guy. He works for a living and loves his family, and until recently had no police record.

Jones has been charged with public disorderly conduct and interrupting a school function, causing a national debate.

Last week, Jones was caught on a school bus security tape boarding the bus, screaming obscenities and threatening the children. The question is: Why?

Jones was protecting his daughter. His special needs daughter, 11 years old and starting middle school, was the victim of bullying — and not just bullying of the “Four-eyes! Four-eyes! You need glasses to see!” chanting, sticks and stones variety. This was severe bullying. Jones’ daughter had been coming to him crying and traumatized.

Her fellow classmates, the children who she had hoped would be her friends, had been taunting her, hitting her and, allegedly, even throwing condoms at her. A girl with cerebral palsy.

So James boarded the bus. He scared the kids. He told his daughter to point out which ones had hurt her, and he screamed his justifiably enraged head off. He told them, albeit less tactfully, to stay the hell away from his daughter or there would be consequences.

During the past few days, he has been the object of national spectacle, with just about every news organization after him. There have been child psychologists out the wazoo analyzing his actions, picking the situation apart and expounding their wisdom on why we should follow the by-the-book methods of dealing with bullying.

The expert opinion is that this was not handled correctly. He probably should have talked to the school and seen if it could be cleared up on their end. The school should have had some sort of assembly and put the children through another formulaic lecture on why bullying is not OK and why you should never just stand by and watch. He shouldn’t have boarded the bus.

So it’s clear he went overboard. Maybe he shouldn’t have been swearing at a bus-load of 11-year-olds and threatening their lives, but as reasons for something like that go, his was pretty good. The experts have their theories about what to do when confronted with a schoolyard bully, what schools should do to prevent it and how bullies should be dealt with.

But put yourself in his shoes. You have just been told that your special needs daughter is having condoms thrown at her head simply because she’s an easy target. Clearly the standardized, expert-approved methods aren’t working. We’d be pretty pissed too.

While his theatrics may have been just a bit over the top, Jones did the right thing. You can psychoanalyze all you want about the child’s needing to feel “in control,” as child psychologist Michael Bradley put it.

But the special-needs middle schooler is the butt of every joke. As he saw it, his daughter was suffering and he wasn’t going to stand by. Sitting her down with a “now sweetie” talk about not being a bystander or “just ignoring them” was no longer a viable option.

Parents today are afraid of their kids. They don’t want an awkward conversation, so they push sex education in elementary schools. They blame bad grades on teachers and their methods.

They simply don’t care enough to get involved. In an age of parental apathy, should we really be punishing someone who actually gets involved in the life of his child?