Bullying and Violence.

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I was raised by a hippie and told that violence is never the answer, and that I should talk out my differences. Personally, I believe this is a good rule for the adult world, but that sometimes it fails in the child's world. I remember coming home from the park once after a fight with a neighbour girl and tearfully informing my mother how difficult it had been to try to "talk out our differences" when the neighbour girls' problem with me was that she "didn't like my face and wanted to punch it". I'd never met the kid before in my life.

My husband on the other hand was raised in true Scotch-Canadian form. Don't take s**t, fight the good fight, and respect yourself by not allowing others to disrespect you.

My Aspie daughter goes to a small rural school. She knows the other kids think she's weird, but nobody had really bugged her about it. She knew how I was raised, and my issues with it, and she heard her stepfather's ideas. I always said, tell a teacher. My husband always said, and when that doesn't work, kick some ass. Then one day last year I got a phone call:

The principal was suspending Eowyn for three days for fighting. Apparently a pair of boys, (who'd been hassling other students as well) decided my daughter would be easy pickings. They crowded her on the staircase and demanded to know why she was going so slow, no matter how much she sped up. She told the teacher, and the boys were told to knock it off. But later in the yard they stepped up to her while she was just standing there demanding to know why she was "going so slow" again. As she was standing still, you can imagine how infuriating this was. She held it together. Complained again. Boys were warned again. Then, in the hall on the way in, they started bumping her and asking... you guessed it.

And she lost it. From the description I got from my son and the principal, it seems she picked one boy up by the shirt and crotch and slammed him into the second boy, knocking them both down. She then jumped on top and proceeded to beat the ever-loving crap out of the pair of them, at the same time. She split one kid's lip open pretty good.

The principal told me that she'd known somebody was going to lose it soon with these boys' behaviour eventually, and was privately glad it had been Eowyn. She told me that she told the boys' parents that they should discuss with their boys that there are risks involved in bullying even for the bullies and that for their boys' self esteem, she hoped they weren't going to make a big deal out of their getting their asses handed to them by a younger special needs girl in a two-on-one fight.

I gotta say, with my hippie upbringing, I had a pretty strong stress-reaction to all this. I really didn't like that it had gone as far as blood and all that. But she did the right thing. The told, repeatedly, and it didn't stop. So now it's my belief that she did what she had to do and in the end, I spent my childhood being bullied in our neighbourhood and at school because cowering in a ball squealing "can't we talk about this!?" made me a target. NOBODY has teased my daughter since this incident, in any way.

So what do you teach your kids about bullies?

I've been struggling with this issue...unfortunately, we have the opposite problem - DS uses violence as a first resort, which results in him being punished (as he should be) but also that the bullies get off scot-free with the extra benefit of having set him off like a jack-in-the-box. We finally gave him enough strategies and resources to address the issues in all the ways he was able except violence, and then the school finally intervened when the bullying kept on going (and we just got his lunchbox back today, after it "disappeared" at beginning of term.)

However, I myself have a story just like your daughter's - I was never diagnosed with anything as a kid, but I did struggle socially, and to top it off, I switched schools a number of times. In about 8th grade in a new school, some boys decided they would see how I would react if they made ambiguously sexual advances (e.g. kissy-faces, overt ogling, etc.) I would respond by standing stiffly and turning my back to them - which they found endlessly amusing. One day, one boy decided to take advantage of his place behind me in line and rub his entire body against mine, and then wiggle his eyebrows suggestively when I turned around, confused. Something inside me broke, and I began robotically kicking him in the shin as hard as I could - the teacher had to drag me off. I had kicked him so hard that I broke the skin and drew blood.

The teacher asked me what happened, and I burst into tears and said "I'm not telling - mostly because I can't explain it," and fortunately, though this teacher hated me, she realized that what had happened wasn't entirely my fault and just separated the two of us. (sorry, there isn't another way to express this teacher's reaction to me; I fortunately never had another teacher who treated me with the active contempt of this woman.) No one bothered me after that, and I eventually got an apology from the boys involved.

So, I think it can be a good answer in certain very, very limited situations - including the one you describe. Unfortunately, the rules are different for boys and girls - so in many cases, what solves the problem for a girl can be a slippery slope for a boy.

Tangent aside, here's what we've done for my son:

Watched this very good video together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNZdc_1Cbyc

Talked through the things DS was able to do when being bullied - he refuses to "tell" so we told him to get as near to the adult in charge as possible and loudly tell the bullies "Stop doing (insert specific behavior) I don't like it!" as many times as it took to get the adult to figure out there was a problem and intervene. If unable to speak, he is to go sit next to the adult.

Talked about reacting as little as possible when being teased, while acknowledging that this is very difficult to do and might be beyond his ability on some days.

We did go through as many verbal strategies as possible, but considering his unique perspective on language (if somebody says it, it's true) most of them didn't work. We tried role-playing "I know you are, but what am I" and "I'm rubber, you're glue, anything you say bounces off me and sticks to you" and "So?" or just agreeing with the bully with a smile "You're right, I am a dork!" and on rare occasions, DS can use these, but they aren't a good strategy for an upset child with communication problems.

Using his "free pass" to leave the situation - he is allowed to leave the room when bothered, and he can do this even if the bother isn't academic.

In general, the best strategy has been to tell him to get to the safest place possible, review what those places might be, and to report, report, report. I live in terror of middle school locker rooms, where this avenue may not be available.

It sounds to me like you taught your daughter exactly the right thing: don't solve problems with violence. That way she didn't fight until she "lost it".

I think the difference between your daughter's experience and your earlier experience wasn't how you were taught, but the fact that she won her fight and you lost yours. That probably had more to do with the respective bullies' fighting experiences than in anything you were taught.

It might be an argument for teaching kids some sort of martial arts, while still teaching them fighting isn't a solution to problems.

Oh, and thanks for posting. It sounds like your daughter is living up to her name. You can call those boys "the nazgul" from now on!

Violence was the only way I got the bullies to leave me alone. My last two years of high school was a paradise for me. No one even looked at me I finally was at peace.

Most high schools are "Lord of the Flies" when you scratch the surface. Kids are volatile, they're pushing boundaries, and they're old enough to be sly about keeping things away from the teachers. I really wish there was a better way of handling abusive bullies, but it's something we just haven't gotten a good grip on yet.

I kind of wish I could hug your daughter and tell her she's absolutely amazing. They cast her as a victim in the highschool hierarchy, and she flipped it on them instead of melting down in tears. I think she's going to be one hell of a woman when she grows up. Her reaction is ethically grey, but within the world she's spending most of her time, she pretty much took down Goliath. Good for her.

(Of course, this comes from the view point of a girl who was bullied pretty badly and really wishes she'd gotten a good shot in at the bastards.)

edit: Amending this say that I may be wrong in my assumption that these aren't little kids. If this is an elementary school, go see the principle and tear him/her a new one. It's absolutely unacceptable that they can't keep children from terrorizing each other.

OP, I also think your daughter did an amazing job of standing up for herself. Its a sad world aspies are forced to live in where they are victimized constantly by ignorant cruel NTs. I also found relief from bullies and tormentors when I struck back physically or verbally. When I kicked a fellow student when she and a couple of her friends were surrounding me, I only received half a detention's worth of detention points as they could see that I was being harassed and threatened and I only did it to escape and defend myself. When I verbally harassed two students after being tormented by them over a period of time, neither I nor the aggressors got punished because they got back a taste of their own medicine and it was again proven (and even confessed by the aggressors) that they had harassed me prior to my loss of control. At the time I was considered NT like everyone else, but my mother and former teachers who knew me well stressed to the year level coordinator that I would not have done anything unless provoked.

The principal of your school should not have punished her that severely. Maybe only one day would suffice. The incidents I described above were in year 8 and it sounds like Eowyn is in elementary school so such severe punishment for someone so young seems over the top. It was well known that the boys bullied other kids. They should be punished as well, even more so as they bullied multiple students multiple times and need to learn that such behavior is not acceptable. As a presumed diagnosed aspie the principal should understand that most aspies her age probably would not even be able to report their behavior in the first place and that most aspies would not be easily able to harm another student their age, let alone two older boys unless they were provoked to the point of blind rage or had a meltdown. If you can prove that your daughter, perhaps through her teachers, teachers aides and any psychologists she has had, would not have acted unless severely provoked she may reduce the punishment or replace one or more of the days with some counseling to work on her "conflict management" skills. Useful for all concerned and will allow her to catch up more easily. Perhaps ask the principal what she is doing to stop kids like those boys doing what they did to your daughter. If the principal had a tougher stance on such behavior, it is likely that they would have been punished enough to learn not to harass other kids long before your daughter was forced to place matters into her own hands. In saying that, I think you have done a great job with your daughter in teaching her to avoid violence as much as possible and her skills in dealing with such harassment is better than even some NT adults. You should be proud of her.

I have to say I think the school and the principal handled the situation exceptionally well. They put a stop to the harassment when they could. The girl did start the fight and did beat up the bullies so badly she drew blood, so the school couldn't really let her off with a slap on the wrist. If word got out among the kids that you could beat someone to a bloody pulp without even getting suspended - and that's how it would come across - there would be a lot of bullies resorting to physical violence.

Based on what the principal told the mother, the principal clearly understood that the girl was provoked, and that the bullies got what was coming to them. A three day suspension is probably pretty mild in this situation; if some kid beat up some other kid that way without being provoked, I'd expect them to get ejected instead. The principal also took advantage of the situation to try to get the bullies' parents to reinforce the lesson. The girl hasn't been harassed since. I really don't see a lot to criticize in the way the school handled this situation, especially compared to the horror stories we hear here every week.

I've taught my kids that there are other ways to stand up for themselves, and so far those ways have worked OK for them. Plus, neither could win the fight, so teaching anything else really isn't an option. But, you know, sometimes there is a bully that is overly intent on being a bully, and if you've got a child that can actually win that fight ... well, I'd never actually tell them to go ahead and fight, but I would be more than willing to accept a 3 day suspension for them putting the bullies in their place. Your daughter just created a classic literary triumph scene. And, really important, she tried the pacifist/strong way first. There are "ideal world" rules, and then there are "today's reality rules." My kids know that I believe sometimes exceptions are required, even if I can't really spell out to them when those times will be. Sometimes you've got to go with the flow.