Friendship turned to bullying

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That is great to hear. I guess it doesn't really matter what type of picking on it is (normal school playground stuff or perception) because your child will perceive it how they perceive it either way.

My son actually claims no one ever ever makes fun of or teases him. I find this hard to believe just because I remember everyone got teased, if even a little, when I was in grade school. Makes me wonder a lot...

My daughter had a great group of friends from the beginning of school, she is 10 years old, but the last couple of years have been hard because as they got older im thinking they started to see different things, anyways she also meets someone for the first time and they are her best friend then they have fall outs i am finding this very hard, she has msn and i keep a close watch on this, i have found that it has improved her spelling greatly! a couple of the girls at her school started to bully her on msn, i decided to deal with it myself and spoke to these girls. I told them that they do not have to be friends with my daughter and said that in life we all come across people that we do not like but that does not mean that we have to be nasty to them just because we dont like them. I ended up having a realy good conversation with them, i also told them that i was not angry with them but i would appreciate it if they would stop being nasty to my daughter. This worked wonders! i couldnt believe it! My daughter came home from school the next day and i asked her how it went, she told me that one of the girls had said to her that she learnt a realy good lesson from me! All this happend b4 we knew my daughter had AS...

In looking over the parenting index, I realize that I never brought this post around full-circle.

This issue was finally resolved. Social skills classes for my son and pragmatic speech therapy were in large part our savior. We also had it written in to DS's IEP that he be allowed to enter and leave school early, have a locker somewhat separated from other kids, thus alleviating some of the pressure-cooker social/physical proximity situations that were the major drivers in ALL the kids' bad behavior.

We did talk to the parents involved, I'm still not sure if that helped or hurt, frankly. If I had it to do over, I'd probably do it again, but I don't think I would get a different result - more that at least we were all on the same page. What helped more was that, mid-year, DS decided to come out to his classmates by having his teacher read them "All Cats Have Asperger's Syndrome."

This had the effect of making the other kids realize that the behaviors they resented were not in my son's control, and surprisingly, they changed: many kids started "looking out" for him on the playground, and intervening on his behalf. I don't know that this will work for everyone (some parents in our social skills class have reported that their child's label gave kids permission to bully them) but, in combination with all the other interventions, this worked for us.

The one child who was formerly my son's friend was the last to stop bullying him - but finally, in 5th grade, DS brought a "cool" toy to a school event (night-vision binoculars) that he wanted to share, and he made friendly overtures. DS responded exactly right: he was friendly in return, but he still doesn't trust this kid completely, and doesn't hang out with him. I agree that the child isn't trustworthy, and I am very proud of my son.

I had the same problem as a kid and my mom tells me as an adult they did that to each other too and I just took it all too literal. When I think about it, I do remember my friends being mean to one of my other friends but I took it all too personal when they do it to me. I think it has to do with how our minds work so it does different effect on us and we see it differently. I also think things kids said to me and did may not have been bullying and I just took it that way. I think that is the thing about being on the spectrum. We don't understand so we may think we are being made fun of or picked on. It's a possibility I may have been the bully in my school and I thought I was defending myself thinking i was being picked on. So when kids were mean to me, maybe they were just retaliating to how I was treating others so it be just a huge misunderstanding then because I thought I was the victim and kids were mean to me for no reason. But because of our autism brains, this method kids do does not work on us. It may work with normal kids but not with us. We then have no idea why kids are mean to us so we think of them as real bullies and mean not even being aware of how we really treat others because we had misunderstood their intent.

I do remember I did have a friend I made in 4th grade and she was nice to me but then she started to get mean to me after the New Years. I don't know what happened. I remember asking her in 5th grade why she was being mean to me and she said she was teaching me a lesson. I also remember I would defend her when these boys harass her but she get mad at me for it so I wouldn't defend her next time and she still get mad at me for it. I couldn't win. She was also the ring leader and my other friends would do what she did, telling me to go away. I don't know if I did anything to her or what I did that made her decide to lose her respect for me and be mean to me. But I also wonder if bullies are mean to their victims to "teach them a lesson" and I don't see how that works because we would have no idea why. It may work with normal kids but with autistic kids, we be too clueless to understand why they are acting this way. It may also be an excuse too they use just to be mean. "Oh Nick eats his crayons, I am going to make fun of him for it and be mean to him to teach him a lesson so he stop doing it. Then we find something else to pick on him about once he quits." But I was so happy when she moved away in 5th grade during Christmas Break. I didn't have to deal with her anymore so things were better after that. It was even hard to drop her as a friend and it took me a while to learn she had changed, she is not the person I knew when we first met, she will never go back to her old self, that person is gone, this is the new her. Or maybe she has always been that way but didn't show her true colors until after the New Years. But the freaky thing is, I swore I saw her down in Colorado when we were in Steamboat Springs and we were in this little shop and I bought this cool keychain, it was a game board and it came with the game pieces. The cashier reminded me a lot like her, her nose and ears and her smile, it all made me think of my old friend I wondered if it as actually her. She did act friendly as I was paying because she was the employee and they are to treat their customers with respect. Right after we left, I said to my parents "That woman looked just like my old friend (her name)." It be a funny coincidence if it was her.

It also happened to my brother too, he had two best friends and then they turned on him by the time they were in second grade and bullied him. But these parents of these two boys were nice people and great parents but their kids were still bullies in school. It amazing what kids can get away with without their parent being aware. I don't know if my mother ever tried talking to these mothers.


But I would say this happens to lot of kids, NTs and aspies, and kids of all sorts of ND differences.

Yes, now that I know better, I am not going to allow anyone to use that phrase around my son ever again. I think it is a sign, frankly, of laziness on the part of teachers and social workers.

There are people who believe children learn better when they are left to their own devices to "sort stuff out." That may be the case in situations where there is a level playing field and everyone is conscious of what they are doing and what their choices mean - but in the case of kids on the spectrum, it's just cruel.

I would suggest maybe the school has a room set aside during break times that your son and other as kids can use during their break times to get space if needed. Maybe near the office so there is teacher supervision and the kids can remove themselves if they need space.