being aware of bullying

[heather]

We took our 6 yr old son who has asd to a football birthday party on monday with the kids from his class. The mum had invited him not the child.

He took bob, his stuffed ghost, who he talks to like it was a person and carried him for almost the whole party. He spent the whole time sitting in the corner of the pitch, lying on the ground flat out like a starfish, playing a throw and catch game with bob and licking the rough walls of the pitch.

The kids made fun of him, stole his bob and asked the birthday boy, 'why did you invite dylan' in such a nasty voice.

Thankfully he seemed faily unaware of the bullying.

Are there any asd adults or children out there or their parents who remember bring aware of the bullying?

[Gareth Roberts]

Bullying seems to be a big problem with people that have AS and/or are different in general. It's good you have picked up on it do you can start to solve it now - rather than later.

He may seem passive at the moment, but as we get older we become more consious of what others think. That is when bullying becomes an issue.

I'm sure others will be able to advise better, but I would suggest your next steps are to try and work to resolve and overcome the problems he is having and also work with his school to reduce the bullying. It's not easy, but while he is still young it's good to nip it right away.

Bullying happens to a lot of people, even without AS so your not alone. It's a horrible experience but most of us have to put up with it at some point, it's just finding ways to reduce the issue in school where they are most sensitive to bullying.

His peers need to be made aware that it's not acceptable, and sometimes others like to do things different to them. What I'd hate to see is a society brought up to expect 'normality' because, who is normal?!

[lucky0979]

it's particularly bad in more isolated areas like hull or the isle of man that are "tucked" out of the way of school inspectors

[alienhats]

Sorry to hear you had to go through that.. It makes me so angry to see how mean other kids can be!
My kid has always been not so "active", he usually falls when he tries to run so he didn't really enjoy walking to his kindergarten, so one day he insisted I take him with a stroller, and I tried to get him off the stroller before we came to kindergarten because I was afraid other kids would react to that. That was a year and a half ago. He was 4,5 years old. He didn't want to walk still so I had to push the stroller. I remember all the kids started laughing and showing him to eachother, and they yell at me asking "why does he sit in a stroller? Is he a baby?" I was so mad at the silly kids! I mean maybe it is not the same thing but do they make fun of people who use wheelchair too?
Also for this saturday and friday my son's little brother (he is 4 now) invited to birthdays which my 6 year old son is not invited. So now I don't know if I should tell him that they didn't invite him or should I try to keep it secret?

[Robdemanc]

I hate bullies. But I think bullying is a natural human tendency. I have been bullied in the workplace it was horrible and did me a lot of damage. The weird thing about it is that I didn't realize the bullying until it had been going on for about a year. Then of course I am left with the question: Am I imagining the bullying or did it really happen? Luckily I had a very good work colleague who had been observing and she told me it was bullying so I knew I wasn't going mad or having delusions. Bullies are the poorest examples of humans. They rely on putting others down to make themselves feel better.

[Sammysnake]

I would speak to the school. The other kids need educating so that they have a chance of growing into kind, accepting and supportive human beings. At the age of 5-6 I think most of them will not be intentionally unkind (some will be sadly and others will copy their behaviour without really thinking about it). Most are seeing behaviour they don't understand and don't know how to respond to. In my experience (I work as a Special Needs Teaching Assistant in a mainstream primary school) I have been amazed at how supportive and accepting young kids can be when things are explained to them. The child I work with has Down Syndrome so she looks different and is smaller than her peers so even the youngest children kind of expect some differences in her behaviour. Occassionally they ask why she acts in a certain way and we answer them honestly in ways they can understand. Another child in my year (year 3) has developed Tourettes. With his agreement and at the request of his parents the children in our year group have had a couple of very open sessions where his difficulties were explained to them and they were able to ask some very sensible questions whilst he was out of the room and told who they could speak to if they were ever worried about anything they heard or saw. They understand he does not control his tics and is not choosing to be rude or unkind. They've all been incredibly accommodating and on the very occassional time when a child has said something out of order, it has been jumped on by the teachers immediately and addressed. We also have a child with ASD in Year 2 and a child with Aspergers and behavioural issues in Year 4 and in all cases, the reasons behind the behaviours are sensitively explained to a level which is appropriate and deemed necessary as are ways in which teachers and peers can help make things better for the individual children. All children need to be taught that different is OK as we are all different from one another.

I'm really sorry you've had such a horrible experience and hope the school will be willing to address this to help make things better in the future.

[jerry5]

really sorry to hear about this. Its fortunate that your son did not seem to pick up on it but its totally out of order. I agree with sammy, you need to speak to the school about this asap. We are very lucky with our 6 year old in that his classmates are very accepting of him and his behaviour and, indeed , are supportive of him. Bullying is, sadly, very common still and is a manifestation of what Reich called the narcism of small differences where people feel safer in groups and pick on those with anything from large to minute differences be it behavioural, racial, sexual or whether the outsider is skinnier, fatter or has a different accent or red hair or whatever and there does tend to be a key instigator in this whom the others seem to blindly follow for fear of themselves being excluded from the core group. I myself was bullied for quite a while partly because I was just taller than the rest of them and one individual in particular made my life hell for too long. I could never tell either my parents or my teachers and it only ended one day when something snapped inside me and said individual lost a front tooth . I got caned for it but he never bothered me again. Im not advocating violence here but whilst at the age of 6 or so most children should be able to listen and understand the dangers and harm caused by bullying as they get older it can be harder to eradicate so you need to get hold of the school/parents now to nip it in the bud. Once again, sorry to hear that youve had this very upsetting experience and best wishes with your dealings with the school and hopefully his classmates attitudes will change.