Horrible Teenagers

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I was walking my son (6) home from school today. Our path goes through a park, where some teenage boys decided to make demeaning sexual comments about me as they passed by. Still laughing, they went onto a merry-go-round. I tried to round up my son, who was already playing, so we could get the heck out of there. What does he do instead? Runs over to the boys and starts pushing the merry-go-round. I had to go over there and drag him away, while the teenagers were calling us "rednecks" and generally making fun of both of us. I have not been so humiliated in a long time. My son thought they were being friendly. He has NO IDEA when people are being nice or mean to him. He just tries to befriend everyone. He was not at all embarrassed by this incident, because he doesn't understand it.
I don't know what to do. There's probably nothing I can do about what happened, but what can I do in the future? Is there anything? Talking to my son will not help, as he will not generalize the information.
I am an easily embarrassed person, and this is really upsetting to me.

Oh, I just wanted to add that I am a conservative dresser. Just in case anyone thought I might have been wearing a snakeskin print skirt and a tube top at the time.

If you're married, have your husband walk through that area instead.

If you're a single mother, consider learning self-defense. Chances are, you won't have to use any of it, but the training will give you a steely calm that will make the teenagers lose interest quickly.

You should've called them fags for playing on the "merry-go-round".

Ouch. So sorry they made you feel this way - and it what you wear doesn't matter, nobody deserves that.d

Not understanding intent is typical of autism, and it isn't a short-term solution. It's probably better to have a child who thinks the best of everyone while he's learning social skills than it is to have one who is terrified of social situations, as it gives you the opportunity to highlight the good. (I always think about the story Flowers for Algernon in these situations)

You can spell out "I don't think those boys are being nice, let's go" so at least he knows why you're upset, and maybe afterwards go over what they did and how it made you feel in detail, but he may just not understand it for a while: sexual comments are particularly difficult, because they are often complimentary on their face (nice legs, nice ass) - you may have to talk about the specific looks on the kids' faces, or the fact that it's rude to mention certain body parts. It takes some time. I assume you have him in social skills classes and pragmatic speech classes?

You should also report the harassment to whatever school you think these kids might go to, and to your local police - I doubt they will be arrested, but a) nobody should have to tolerate that behavior, even if it doesn't involve physical danger and b) those kids need to learn that what they are doing is harassment.

I would have just said "they're not nice boys, we need to go" but I'd actually be GLAD that my son didn't understand. He's little and in that instance, what he doesn't know won't hurt them. He was actually "killing them with kindness" without even knowing it.

There are enough mean people in the world. My son came home one days and asked me what a c#$%sucker was!! !! ! I was HORRIFIED! Some nasty kid who had been bothering him called him that. I just told him not to worry about it because the kid was apparently a dirtbag. But I called the kid's mom. She was JUST as nasty. Wouldn't you know that kid got kicked out of school their freshman year of high school?!

I told my son to just stay away from him and ignore him. I don't want him to get into a battle of wits because he would never win. For them I think it's best to just turn the other cheek and walk away. I know I'm not capable of doing that and lots of times I wish I was!

I like the responses suggested above.

Remember this about bullies (which is what those kids are) - their fun is in seeing your reaction. Steal it up, don't show any embarrassment. Let your actions and demeanor show that you are in control of the situation, not them. See if you can practice that - this is a skill you are going to need raising a special needs child.

I don't have any suggestions about what to tell your son, except that the kids were being mean. I do have a suggestion for how to handle kids like that next time though. I've found that in every situation I've ever been in where a teen was acting ugly, if I get all "Mom" on them and go up to them and use the Mom tone and fuss at them and tell them to cut it out, they do, at least until I'm out of sight. You have to be forceful though, and don't show fear, and treat them exactly like you would if they were your kids or your kids friends and they were acting that way at your house.

Don't know where you live, but that is an offence here, I would call the police who would arrest them for offensive behaviour. Most cops I know are married and have kids and would take an extremely dim view of what happened to you, so regardless of the laws I think its the right thing to do if it happens again. Its unacceptable.