Why does he have to change to stop being bullied

Post Reply New Topic

My lad is only six and I'm already feeling the need to get therapies for the sole purpose of making sure my son doesn't stand out in the playground. He may or may not be Aspergers. Two separate speech therapists at different points in his development have given their opinions (age 3 and recently) and he is having sensory and motor skill difficulties but his main problems have been at PE and in the playground.

Kids love to tease him. They get exactly what they want from him. A very explosive reaction. We're working on that along with a lot of other things. He's got enough little hurdles to overcome. He's already in a Social Sense class, speech therapy and occupational therapy for pencil grip. He works very hard already just to do what other kids learn to do naturally. I get annoyed more by the rubbish he's got to put up with in the playground. He's got to learn early that he can only control his own emotional responses and actions. Some neurotypical adults never learn that!! !

He shouldn't have to change at all. The parents of the bullies are the ones who need to change.

Bullies didn't get much of any response out of me but that never deterred them.

"Standing out in the playground" as far as dressing differently, having unusual mannerisms or atypical interests, then I would say let him be him! But standing out because he has trouble regulating his emotions or wants to make friends but doesn't know how to approach and interact with the other kids means that he could use some help.

I could easily have written this. My AS son started getting targeted around the 3rd grade. He is quiet and shy and tends

to play by himself. Some interpret that as snobbery, sometimes I think bullies just want to see what kind of reaction he'll

give. He'll give one for sure, he has a strong sense of self preservation. The problem is the teacher see his reaction but

never the instigation. This continued and kind of reached a peak last year in the 6th grade. I had been giving him the

party line about ignoring it and/or telling an adult. Finally I told him do what you need to do. I told him if he got in trouble

at school he had to face the punishment but he wouldn't be punished additionally by me. So he fought back and got a

one day oss (out of school suspension) and things started changing after that. I explained to him that the school is not

allowed to tell him to fight back. This goes against my idea of the way it ought to work but that's the only thing that made

a difference, making sure the bullies knew he was not going to be a compliant target.

If you have the means, put him in a small private or religious school that emphasizes strict discipline. If you have the means to home school him, do this. The environment is the problem really. The public school environment is a bad one for a special needs kid. The public institutions don't have the resources to closely monitor kids for bullying. Unless you can get him out of there, you'll probably be playing damage control his entire childhood.

You could teach him to trade insults, or, if you're so inclined, teach him to fight back. Most bullies are also cowards and don't want to fight, so bloodying a nose or two keeps them away. I wasn't physically bullied much at all. I got into 2 fights my entire life and both ended with me in a half conscious rage chasing another kid around the playground. I don't know whether the perception that I'd go nuts on somebody kept me safe or whether it was the fact I didn't show any fear of them or what. Either way, I got the sense people knew I would hit back if they hit first. More often it was just trading insults and mutual nastiness, and eventually I got good enough at this that most people just avoided me. Of course, I was still an outcast and under a lot of stress from having the mentality of a cornered raccoon.

The schoolyard environment won't change much, as it hasn't changed much in decades, and public institutions lack the resources, the will, and the authority to exercise the sort of control that is required to prevent bullying. Your only choices are to get the kid out of the environment, or minimize the damage done as best you can.

We had a bullying issue this year with DS; I had brought it to the social worker's attention to no avail...I finally brought it up at his 504 meeting where the vice-principal was in attendance. He asked me which boys were bullying my son, and the NEXT DAY the bullying stopped. DS's missing lunchbox magically reappeared.

These kids were older, and I don't know what the principal said, but whatever it was worked. I should have insisted on outside intervention earlier, but in years past, DS was unintentionally instigating a lot of the bullying behavior (I think the other kids thought they were protecting themselves - DS's bad pragmatic speech can sound like bullying.)

Thanks to everyone that responded. It's great to be able to talk things through and you've given me a lot to think about.

Motor skills and pencil grip, sounds like Dyspraxia maybe, has he a dx for that also?

but they won't
and people have to understand that
aspies need to change because its not a world built for them and the world isn't going to change for a small minority