oh dear

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There's a kid at the gym we go to who keeps being hostile towards my son. The other day, I heard him quietly sing out "I hate you" as my son went by up the stairs.

My ire was raised and I spoke sharply to him about it. Then I realized from his reaction that he clearly has some form of special needs himself.

I went after him, apologized for yelling, and tried to talk to him about their relationship, but I don't think he really heard me. He may have been too upset from being confronted to communicate.

I feel pretty bad about it.

I wouldn't feel bad if I were you. Special needs or not, he knows he was being deliberately horrible, and needs to know that it won't be tolerated. He has no excuse for bullying.

I hope that your son is coping with the situation - how has he been?

Don't worry about it. Your first priority is to protect your child. Job done.

You might have done the best possible thing. He may get away with bad behavior because he isn't typical and might really need the kind of reality check you gave him. Just because he's got issues himself gives him no excuse for acting out to others.

We all do things we regret. You did the right thing by apologizing. I suggest you forgive yourself, think about how you would handle the situation differently in the future, and then promise yourself that you will handle future situations differently. Not only will this make you a better person, but it will set a good example for your child(ren). You're only human. Learn and grow from the experience m'aam, learn and grow

I wouldn't feel bad about it. You were protecting your son. Hopefully, his parents are working with him on his issues. If no one says anything to him, how is he going to learn?

Well, I don't think he did learn anything from it. I'm thinking I should talk to the people who supervise the kids and see if we can work out something that will help them get along better. I'm not assuming my son is blameless in this -- he can be pretty abrasive and difficult. Ironically enough, the NT kids at the gym seem to be pretty patient with him.

As far as I know, my son didn't notice at all. Though I may be wrong. He is not always as oblivious as he appears.

I probably wouldn't have been as upset by this if there hadn't been a truly horrible experience at the pool the other day, where these really little kids were forming gangs to follow my son around and talk nastily about him. They were like sharks who smelled blood. His dad is taking him to the pool now.

special needs child or NT child is not important you should never go up to any body child, you should always look around in see what adult the child is with
so if it turn out he was a nt are you going to not feel bad about going up to him

bullying is always wrong

I'll agree that I don't think it was the best way to handle it, but I don't think I did anything inherently wrong in reprimanding a child who was taunting my son (and not for the first time.) There was no adult with him - I'm not sure how old he was, but old enough to be on his own. Old enough to be responsible for his own behavior, if he was a typical child.

The problem is that not all children are always supervised as they should be. One day when my son was only about 2 yrs old, I took him to the park that has a sandbox area. He had just started walking, and was still a little wobbly. He was sort of in the general vicinity of a sandcastle that had been made, but wasn't that close. All of a sudden a boy that appeared to be about 8-10 yrs old just yelled as loud as he could "Don't step on my sand castle!! !" My son was practically a baby then, and this big kid was yelling at him. My son was balling his eyes out. I said nothing to the little boy because I was in shock, but looking around, I NEVER saw anyone say a thing to this kid. I think this kid probably had some issues, so where were his parents or supervisor???? There is NO reason for an 8 or 10 yr old kid to yell at a 2 yr. old.......

So what I am saying is that I am seeing it a lot these days that kids are left unsupervised alot...

I think your best bet is to talk to the teachers or whoever is in charge so that they can keep an eye on it, but I still would not feel bad about reprimanding the kid.

if he wasn't he still should be responsible