How did you distinguish between playful teasing and bullying

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Forget trying to teach him to be a good sport...its only going to lower his self esteem and estrange him from you.
Somethings you will not be able to teach him. My parents used to do this whole. "I am not laughing at you...I am laughing with you" My response was that would be "kinda hard because I am not laughing". It only makes you feel very alone. He needs a soft place to land after dealing with bullying and percieved bullying all day at school. He needs a safe place and it is your job to provide him with that place. It is common for dad's to want to treat their autistic child like it is something they can snap out of, but that only makes things worse. Dont listen to him on the teasing thing because from your child's perspective, he is in a social nightmare that he cant get out of and when that nightmare invades his home life...there is no where to go for relief. Like being a hamster trapped on a wheel and cant get off to rest.

Becides my mom asked my therapist about abuse because she was being verbally and emotionally abused by my dad...and my therapist said, "if it feels like abuse, then it is."
I also went 3-4 years without saying a word to my father when I was a teenager. It hurt him, but he hurt me, so I just pretended he did not exist.

I think the same advice can apply in your husbands tactics, plus it is just totally unfair to punish him for this.
That kind of reminds me of this girl in one of my classes where the teacher was a jerk and teased her because she could not pronounce words right, and she mouthed off at him in retaliation and he threatened to expell her from the program. I went to the hospital athorities on that one and the teacher was removed from the program. (It was a brain injury program...she had brain injury that caused paraylisis)

It took me until I was in my late 20's to accept alittle teasing, but if people tease me alot, I just avoid them altogether . Dont worry so much about making him "fit in" because in some ways, he never will fit in with "normal people" but will gravitate towards ppl who think like he does. I used to get teased by my parrents and still do about my "weird friends". But we have an understanding that I cant seem to relate to normal folks.
He is who he is, autism and all...and as a parent you have to accept that life will not always be kind to him, but you can make life easier at home.

Thanks everyone for all of the amazing insights.

I'm still torn, as some of you think that teasing can not be learned and therefore we shouldn't attempt to teach it to him under any circumstances (and that for us to tease our son is a form of bullying)...and others say they were able to learn to distinguish teasing from bullying, and it helped them fare better in school and life.

The following posts helped me come up with some steps to pursue.

1. Help him learn to distinguish teasing from bullying in structured practice time with his full knowledge and consent.

AND



AND (my favorite!! !) help him read clues that someone isn't trying to be mean to him:



2. If he determines that the child is trying to be friends, getting him to loosen up, smile, and attempt to tease back.



I do tease my husband regularly in front of my step-son, and my husband teases me right back. Of course, with my husband's AS his teasing is often clumsy and inelegant but I take it in the right spirit. We do it in a silly, giggling way with hugs and kisses and it never turns mean or personal.


3.And finally, if he feels the other child is being mean or trying to bully him, getting him to not react thus depriving the bully of the "fun" of getting a rise out of him:



These are the kinds of things I'm desperate to learn so I can teach them to my step-son. I strongly believe my husband has AS as well and he has told me HORRIBLE stories of how he was physically and emotionally abused as early as middle school and into high school until it got so dangerous for him that he had to be home schooled. So, this is not about trying to get him to "fit in" or be "normal"...it is out of concern for his safety and for the safety of other kids as well, as he often strikes out against them when he perceives he is being bullied when witnesses insist that he was not being bullied. I am looking for ways to keep this cycle from repeating.

Oh, and for those of you who think we are bullying our son, he does have a "safety word" he can use whenever he needs us to stop something immediately...and he uses this word regularly and we respect it by stopping immediately when he uses it.

The problem we've had in the past with teasing (and that we may be able to prevent by following some of the above advice) is that he can seem to be on board with it, going along just fine with maybe gentle giggling protestations...and then like a light switch he gets angry and starts yelling and or hitting us.

We don't know where the "line" is. Obviously, we want him to feel safe and loved at home and our teasing is never mean-spirited so I'm at a loss as to what sets him off like that. Maybe knowing in advance "now we're going to practice...so feel free to use your safety word if you're uncomfortable and want us to stop..." will keep that from happening.

Also, my husband and step-son do see a therapist together so maybe this is something she can work with them on, maybe I could join them in it as well. I think it's important anyway, and worth further investigation.

Again, thank you SO much for your personal experiences. They were very helpful.

Oh, and feel free to continue to give more advice/insights/opinions. I am like a sponge, eager for all points of view!

I have a difficult time telling them apart. I can tell if there is a soft laugh but not when there is a smirk. For the most part, I've become quite passive about it and not letting it get to me.

It's always been difficult for me to tell the difference as an adult. In school it was much easier. If they were just laughing it was teasing..if they broke your finger and pushed you in a ditch behind the school, it was bullying.

I can tell after years and years of not being able to, but it's never instinctive; I have to process it.

I'm thinking there's a continuum, with a range in between friendly teasing and bullying. I think in an ongoing relationship, it's more likely to be clearly friendly or unfriendly. That in addition to being able to guess based on, well, if the person's a friend or a not-friend.

If it's someone one just met, I'm thinking sometimes it can be teasing as a test. Like, something that can go either way based on the response of the person being teased.

Yes, and sadly my son always fails that test and things get worse and worse for him at school.