Son injured by bully at school; no help from administration

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True. Once word gets out that the picked on kid will fight back and actually can fight back, they will move on to an easier target. Looking back in time, at how I was, and even remembering how it made me feel, I hate how I was such a whiney little crybaby back then. I didn't know how to be any different so it wasn't my fault, and luckily I had just a couple of friends who knew that had to be taught in some kids and who taught me not to do it. If I went back in time, I would probably pick on the then me now too because of it. I'm not at all saying your kid deserved to be picked on. Not one bit. I was there myself and hated it, but I also know that perceived weakness is the biggest bully magnet of them all.

This one kid I know, I'm friends with his dad and he's a friend of my kids. He's 21 now, but back in the day when he was in school he was the biggest brat and a holy terror. He was and is a Golden Gloves boxer, traiing at a boxing gym from the time he was first old enough to get in the ring, was a started on the football team in high school and started on the baseball team every summer. He was and is the kind of alpha male that guys here on this forum hate and want to kill. However, I remember when one of my kids came home from school and told me he got his butt handed to him but this nerdy kid at school who everybody picked on. This kid was picking on the nerdy kid and that kid finally just went off on him. From that day no, nobody picked on the nerdy kid. Nowdays, the kid is very much the type to stand up for the nerdy kid, of for no other reason than "You don't want to get your ass whipped by him and then have everybody know it".

So yes, it takes beating up one bully to put a stop to it. But you don't want to beat that bully up too badly because 1) juvie, and 2) then you will have every other bully wanting to take you on. Just middle of the road stuff so he doesn't get back up and just walks of when he does,.

It's a terrible thing to be picked on. But, growing up like I did, I found out it's a worse thing to be weak and just keep taking it day after day. Even if you fight back and lose, you still have a shred of your honor intact. When you don't fight back, or just run and tell, you have nothing left to call your own. It actually is a comfort afterwards, that at least you did something. Nobody wants their kids to get in a fight because that means someone else is actually hitting their kid and that infurates parents. I know it infurates me if somebody hits one of mine. But, I fully expect my kid to stand up and give it all they have to fight for themselves. The problem comes along when they try many times and can't fight for themselves or they are truly physically unable to do it in the first place. It's a hard part of parenting, but one that parents have to deal with when the kid has to deal with a bully, which just about every kid does at one time or another. Of course, as they grow up, the bullied and the bully both learn to use words and fight with each other that way, but until they have that adult capacity, they have to slug it out. And you have to let them.

Talk to the police. Your son has suffered a physical assault, you can press charges against the boy who did it. Bring the pictures as proof.

Good point. Child protective services is also an option, each state has their own procedure, but you can call a report hotline, describe your situation and ask if that is reportable. Documented injury is enough to warrant an investigation.

I have mixed feelings about the self-defense classes thing. I think it's generally good for people to know how to defend themselves. I also had my own occasional childhood experiences with bullies that I solved by fighting back. However a child with ASDs may have other difficulties with social skills and deciding when violence is appropriate and when not. More importantly, there are subtle things that people consider when fighting (like who is watching, how hard to fight back and when to stop) that a child with ASD may not pick up on. Some children learn to bully in subtle ways, like intentionally bumping into a child with their shoulder or tripping them. If a child responds to that by punching the bully in the face, the bully can claim that the tripping was an accident, and the victim will be the one who is severely punished. In that way, condoning violence as a possible solution to problems may cause some serious problems for the child, even if they were only acting in self-defense.

You also have to keep in mind that double standards are often applied to kids on the spectrum, and that people may not be as forgiving toward a child with an ASD defending themselves as they are toward the bullies who are initiating the violence. A school, that is sick of having to make accommodations for a child on the spectrum, may rejoice in an excuse to expel the child for fighting.

Sounds very much like my school years. There is absolutely the danger that his grades/participation will continue to fall unless the situation is taken care of.

Does the "humping" activity happen in the locker room? I started refusing to go into the locker room. I just layered my clothes. I've heard some people get doctor notes to be excused from gym classes. Maybe these are options. Does the school have a counsellor for the boy to talk to? Do you go to church? Does he have a priest? A principal often ignores parents ("who dote and exaggerate their childs' situation") but they aren't going to snub an adult from outside your family, if such a person were to approach them regarding these concerns.

During recess, I always took a library book and sat at on the window ledge of classrooms where I knew the teacher puttered around. Bad boys don't like it when you can toss yourself against a window and gain a teacher's attention....

If the matters are small (there was a kid who used to do minor things like trip me in the hallways, or suckerpunch me every so often) and your boy takes after them, I can see how the principal is getting confused. Happened at my school too - I never threw a punch but I was placed in the "mild anger management lunchtime awareness group" at one point. If the matter is serious all out fights, or classwide amusements like the humping, and he's getting into trouble for fighting back in THOSE situations, then the only way to clear this up might be to "hire" a tattletale to go running for a teacher whenever a fight starts up. OR if it's an "every day at the same time" thing, schedule yourself AT the school, WITH one of the teachers (or hell even a janitor) and MARCH IN while it's happening. With a camera if you have to.

See above re priest/etc. Maybe see if there is a "mental health consultant / coordinator" type association in your community / government or charity / who can get involved. I know in my area there is such a group, intended to accompany people with mental health concerns in dealing with the ins and outs of "the system" (ie courts, welfare, finding a doctor, etc)

Can you make friends with one of these SBE people? Get them to go to the school with you? Better'n a janitor
Can you make friends with the other parents whos' kids are having issues too? Maybe there are ideas there; brainstorm?
(ie petition for a new principal)

Really? You want to bring in CPS over a damn playground fight? Or lawyers?????

WTF happened to this country???????

Put a fork in me, I'm done.

ETA: and don't blame my advice when he's still living there at 45 and waking you up because there is a spider in the tub!! !!

its the game you have to play now
if he fights back and gets caught the school will definitely involve the police and since hes on an IEP they will probably bring a whole army of psychiatrist to demonize him

I ain't got to play a goddamned thing, and neither do ya'll. You just think you do!

Yeah!

What happened to the good old days when people knew how to settle something and keep it in the family?

Like the Hatfields and McCoys? Once, people knew how to do it without lawyers and police and all the rest.

Or Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Politics is weak as water these days. Can you imaging Boehner and Biden with pistols or swords at dawn?! !!

On the other hand... maybe it's a good thing.

Ruin your own kids then, if you ever have any. I don't give a s**t.

And by the way, during old school s**t, you shoot to WOUND, not kill. But oh yeah, you must have some expertise with firearms for that. Not have some little plastic gun take out of your hand and told "BRandon, Brandon, we don't ever, EVER use these! They are bad things!" Jesus f*****g Christ!

You know, honestly, there are times when I wished my parents would have rescued me from certain things, and there are other times when I felt they were overly strict and protective. (And still think that, now. ) You know what? As a parent we're damned no matter what we do. You are never going to get it right 100% of the time. None of us are.

How are you going to guess right? I think we all try to use our knowledge of our own individual kids and make the best da** decisions we can. One thing I know is that as bad a guesser as I am apt to be with my own kid, I am going to be multiples and multiple worse trying to guess with other people's kids. I give advice anyway, but everyone should take everyone else's advice with the proverbial grain of salt (probably especially mine as I have very little ToM) knowing that no one knows your kid as well as you do. Some kids can handle tough love and baptism by fire; others would melt in the heat. No one parenting philosophy will work with all kids.

Actually, what you do say is true here especially if it is true that one has free will. By one claiming that one has no choice then one has no free will and one is a programmed automaton. There is a fine print to having choice and free will. One does always have a choice which is a tautology but it is the outcomes of the choices one has to look at. Each choice in a set of choices a person makes leads a set of outcomes which can be positive or negative (inclusive or). Chris perceives no other outcome that is positive. Do you perceive any other possible Choices that Chris can make that will lead to more positive outcomes?

I don't think one parenting philosophy will work for all kids either. I believe what may work is careful deliberation, critical thinking, and thoughtfulness to get to a middle ground. I am not a parent yet but will be one in the future. I am learning about the pitfalls you all have been through. What I see here is all of the parents have access to a bit of the truth. They are correct to certain extents.

Sue the school is your son fights back and they punish him. There is a decent amount of common law precedent that a person who is attacked has a right to defend himself with reasonable force.

The most he will get is ISD or suspension for fighting back. That happens. Deal with it. My younger son got a week of ISD and a week of suspension I think, or it might have been two weeks, for breaking that one other kids jaw who hit him first. He may be skinny, but he's the youngest son in a big family and picked on a lot as a kid. Therefore, he's got a punch like The Rock. One punch, shattered the other boys jaw. They are friends now though.

Your responses and general style seem a bit over the top, to me. Hyperbolic. "So far F***ing overboard you can't them with a life preserver" to paraphrase a colorful response in another thread.

It almost seems like you might be going through some kind of manic episode or have started a new medication--though I can equally well believe this ranting style is just how you habitually express yourself.

A couple of points, though:

1. Not every parent who does something to protect their kids in a specific situation is either a) overprotective or b) your mom.

2. Guns really have nothing to do with this conversation. Really nothing at all.

I appreciate everyone taking the time to respond to my post. We sent a letter to the school superintendent and now have a meeting with him scheduled for next week, so we'll see how that goes. We are also having three different people (a disability advocate, the head of the Center for Autism at the local university where DS was diagnosed, and DS's behavioral therapist) review his file and IEP to see what they recommend.

I completely understand that there are parents who are overprotective to a fault, but I don't think we are among them. It's one thing to teach a child that he may have an occasional conflict with someone and needs to learn how to cope, and quite another to expect him to endure repeated and systematic abuse from peers and/or authority figures. Not to mention the simple fact that people need to be held accountable for their actions. The actions of the bullies are not OK, and they shouldn't be allowed to get away with this behavior as if my son doesn't matter. Honestly, if at 10 years old they are physically injuring and sexually harassing special-needs kids, what will they be doing at age 17 or 18? Hopefully our family will have moved out of the area by then and won't have to find out!