New mom on the block needs advice

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First of all, what kg4fxg's wife said.

Second, we dealt with a lot of this sort of thing from both the school and from the kids a year and a half ago to the point that we had to take DS to the ER to evaluate how serious the suicidal ideation was (and his language was just as extreme, plus we had violence.)

Here's what happened, near as I can figure out: DS had a severe pragmatic language deficit (took a specialist, a multi-disciplinary team working in the field of pediatric development) and wasn't understanding that insisting that all the other kids play "his way" was perceived as "bossy" and "mean." Those kids did what kids, unfortunately, do when another kid is mean to them - they proceeded to try to "punish" him for his behavior - of course, being kids, this took the form of really mean teasing and no specific complaints, right? They would trip him 'accidentally,' or bump into him, or basically do anything that would get him screaming, freaked out - and especially fighting back so he would be the one getting in trouble.

We got the same speech from the school's social workers..."natural consequences" has become the phrase I hate most, because it doesn't apply in a situation where a child has NO IDEA what's driving all the bad behavior.

We finally started documenting every single incident, and brought it to the school principal every single time; we first tried going through the social worker and were ignored. When we used the word "bullying" and provided evidence (they were hiding my son's lunchbox, which was turning up in places he doesn't go) they eventually did something about it, and it stopped.

Did my son have something to do with the problem? Yes. Did he have any control over that? No. Did it make me a "helicopter parent" to insist that the school take action? I don't care; I still don't know if we finally got what we needed because they realized we were right or were afraid we learned too much about our rights, but DS is 10000% better now, and pretty "normal" when it comes to social interactions.

We did get him social skills classes and insisted the school offer pragmatic speech therapy, and those two things have made a HUGE difference in the long term - but in the short term, we did need to intervene to get the behavior to stop. I would highly recommend hiring an advocate; it was one of the things that finally got the school to take us seriously, plus it gives you a "voice of reason" when you're sitting in front of the Mt. Rushmore IEP team sobbing your eyes out or running on at the mouth.

In the parenting index, there's a section on bullying and a section on suicidal ideation where I wrote about what happened to us and what the outcomes were.

First of all, NO child should be bullied. Yes, this exists in the "real" world and in the "real" world there are legal ramifications. The other children who bully need intervention and it should never be tolerated. The consequences can be fatal for the bullied child if depression and anxiety persist.

Secondly, if your son has an ASD, he will likely never learn appropriate social skills without intervention and his teachers need to be made to understand that his behaviors stem from a actual neurological disability and he is not "choosing" to misinterpret social signals. His aggression may be related to being bullied. The assumption is that if he's verbal, he can verbalize his frustration and ask for help from teachers. This is usually very difficult and the child needs to be coached extensively on how to do this. I have seen students stand next to their tables when their chair has gone missing, and it does not occur to them to simply ask "Hey has anyone seen my chair?" This is a social skill and social skills are part of the condition.