Declaring War on Bullies

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Thanks for your thoughts Laney2005. It's a delicate thing to maneuver. I don't want him to take on a victim role and I don't want him to compensate for his frustration by picking on someone else. He's 11 he can't be expected to be wise. BTW what's an SLP?

I'll be honest....there's only so much I can say as I don't know him personally.

But one thing you might have to face: he might just become very withdrawn overall.

It certainly happened to me.

The only time people try to start up with me is when I'm at work, when they know I can't do a lot cause I must remain professional at all times.

Where I get lucky is I'm one of the top guys there, and so when some dumb teenage lifeguards start up with me, and I slam 'em, and the people complain( and they will...their stupid like that), I give 'em my side, and that's that.

One unfortunate thing to understand is that many humans will look for that opportunity to take advantage of the guy with the huge bullseye on him....so when they see someone starting up, I believe deep down they're so weak, they sadly sympathize with the abuser over the abusee.

Like I said...I own my own business anyway, so I'm not too bothered by it, as I know in a few years I'll never see these schmucks again.

On the plus side though, it also offers me a great opportunity:

when I become successful, people will start hounding me for money; it gives me more experience to tell 'em to "make like Jed, and Clamp it"

I know, people will say "stand up for yourself, but don't be a douchebag"; it is a delicate balance, and unfortunately in many cases you're not given the options you want.

It's a very fine line, and hopefully with time he'll be able to understand. At 11, I'm not sure.

As long as he's good to the people who are good to him, fine.

If he starts treating everyone else 3rd rate though....I wouldn't entirely blame him, and I wish I'd thought of it far longer ago.

I also moved two states over, cause it just got that bad. I started with a clean slate, and despite some occasionally annoying lifeguards and some BS customers, it's been a lot better out here for me.


another thing worth noting is that at that age, he might still be attempting to please everybody, and make them like him; it's something I was taught to do( wrongly, might I add).

He can't please everybody; in fact most people won't be, and can't be, cause they don't even know what they want. I think in time, he'll understand that.

Don't be surprised if he needs some counseling in time...but just remember:

he shouldn't have to sell out, and focus on making others like him. It's important for him to like himself, not be worried about everyone else liking him, when they already don't like themselves.

They don't deserve him; and that's something that he should be taught more than anything else.

One other tip: don't give him the "they're missing out on what a great friend they could have in you" speech, cause no they wouldn't. Reason being...they can't even comprehend what he'd be able to offer.

I'm sure he's on a much higher plane of intelligence than they are--academically or not--so it's something that he really has to discover on his own, and just trying to get him to get along better with everyone else won't work.

It never does, no matter how badly everyone wants to believe it.

Yes Aimless, as I've already mentioned my own troubles with bullying I'd like to add that during my own time never did I mention being tormented to my mother for, I'd not wished to be seen as weak & feeble.Honestly, I had secretely wanted to have my older brother present during those times but, sadly he had passed away year before I entered middle school and all so, I was left to fend for myself which, did not turn out great..
Sincerely, I can understand how your son might feel less-likely to seek action agains those of whom are tormenting whom but, speaking from the heart it's better to do something about such early in life than to wind up suffering from the long-term effects later on.
Aimless, hopefully you'll be able to find some means of fixing this scenario whether it is changing schools or trying to get the members of the current school system to open their eyes to what is going on and all.. Truthfully, I wish you not only a great amount of sincere hope but, that you show a huge amount of courage in this matter that affects so many Autistic teenagers and possible some adults whom, had to deal with such myself included..

Aimless, I wanted to write about myself a little bit, but not from the perspective of a parent because I don't have children, and may never now, realistically speaking, so my thinking may not be mature but more reactionary, but I still think I'm right. I'm speaking as that kid, like your son, who was bullied mercilessly in school, from kindergarten through grad school, and also through many of my years at work.

I will be 43 in January and the bullying has not stopped! Albeit, adult bullies try to be more subtle it all amounts to the same b-s. I can't seem to negotiate the politics or to handle self-defense in a verbal and a succinct manner. If I could, I think I would have been bullied less.

and in grad school I was bullied by people who arguably shouldn't even have been in the program and who could not really do a high level of work. They were not there on a fellowship as I was, they had to take out school loans, and I think they were there to fill the classroom, so the school could make money off them -- sorry to digress.

Is this story relevant? I think so, because if your son has straight A's, that stokes a lot of envy as the good work I do also makes people envious and resentful. Truth is truth.

The same thing at work; I'm bullied because of the level work I'm expected to do and the fact that I make a little $$ more doing it. But since I can't negotiate the political mine field, which is just as brutal in school as in any workplace, and since I'm different, they think I should go away, and they pressure me, bully me, and make fun of everything I do, the way I do it, and things that I say, mostly behind my back and it has taken me a long time to catch on, but I have finally caught on, and I have called them out on it. I expected them to defend themselves, but they didn't. They did an about face. They stopped making fun of me for a little while but I expect them to start up again when they think my guard is down.

I've recently begun pressuring people back by telling them to their faces that I don't deserve that kind of treatment, and I also went to a senior manager, and that made quite a few of them back off as well. But I can tell the ringleader is going to start again, she's got that face full of spite that has become so familiar to me when I was in school, that I dreaded, that I avoided by trying to just put my head down and shoulder through, but that did not work for me in school. I endured a lot of verbal and emotional abuse, I'm glad now it wasn't physical, but still, the mind, I think takes the same toll.

I have had to deal with those memories of not defending myself in so many situations. I've learned that I'm going to have to face it and deal with it at work. I've learned to look my attackers in the eye, something I never did before in 42 years, and it's kind of liberating. I don't know where I got the nerve to just stand there and stare them down without exchanging a word. I'm not good verbally, but what can I do? I can't bear it any longer, dealing with these people.

Here's something to take away from this long post which seems off topic, but it's not really, and that is these people don't change as you get older. Oh, their faces and names will change, but their personalities, group-think monsters following one or two ringleaders with a low self esteem, keep repeating and repeating ad nauseum. It took me a long time to face the fact that being nice only feeds these types, you have to learn to stare them down, somehow, find a way to fight in a way that will undermine their whole act.

The need to bully is a psychosis and the group think that leads others to also join in is, I think, kind of a sociopathic mob mentality. It is not kids being kids. This is a human trait and one of the darkest (what led to the Nazi horrors and the reign of every dictator), the inability of humans to stand up to such crud, such total morons as the bullies in your son's school.

Funny enough, group think can go the other way. ONce one person stands up, you'll see others will stand with you and realize how ignorant the bullies are. But that is a very difficult thing to do, to be the first to stand up. I'm doing it at work; a manager did side with me, but still maybe I could lose my job.

But I will gain a lot of pride in defending the person that I am that does not deserve such b-s, and I think your son will learn that by defending himself, he will walk away with a tremendous amount of confidence. Okay, and maybe a black eye. It's a risk I take as well, to get hurt, but it is impossible to run from or ignore bullies. You have to stand and fight them, even so young. I wish I had so long ago. I would have been a stronger person and had far more of an enjoyable life up to now.

I'm sorry for the long post. I wanted to share what it was like to have carried around such abuse (which made me feel guilty somehow) all these years. Like there's something wrong with me. I have absolutely nothing to be guilty about all these years, and nothing to feel bad about as a kid. I wish someone had told me. Sure nobody is perfect, and I do have AS but there is nothing wrong with me to the point where I should be harrassed, and nobody else should be either. Zero tolerance starts with the people being harrassed. Be strong.

jul
I am glad you started taking action. I think so often we assume we deserve it because of confusion about how and where we fit. Ironically, I've known a few people who have overcompensated being treated unfairly by fighting every battle no matter how small. Some indignities are best ignored. I wonder if any one has come up with a reason why some people find pleasure in another's pain. It may not seem so if you are the victim of bullying, but I think the world is mostly made up of live and let live people. They're not going to go out of their way to make anyone's life miserable. How is morale at work overall? It seems like such a poisonous atmosphere would affect everybody.

Jul, that is one of the greatest things I have read in weeks! They ARE there to take up space! Straight out of the copy machine and into the chairs.

Aimless, an SLP is a speech-language pathologist. The person who would be in charge of teaching social skills (hence my apprehension at the idea of these bullies working with kids like us). That's another reason I'm going to become an SLP (and eventually I hope to become a professor)-- to stop bullying!

Tell him to kill 'em with kindness. It may not be the most effective thing at the age of twelve, but when he hits high school the guilt on their faces when you take the high road(and the knowledge that they really learned their lesson) will be priceless. Manipulative? Yes. But a long-lasting, bloodless way of forever denuding a bully that could go on to hurt others.

Yes, I enjoy killing with kindness. I also enjoy pretending like I don't notice someone's trying to start an argument. He's not ready for that yet. He hasn't been picked on since he went off on the kid on the bus. I hope it lasts. My boss's oldest son was bullied even though he was bigger than everybody else. He was sensitive and dyslexic. He started fighting back and now carries himself with this tough guy demeanor. I just think it's a shame he has to pretend to be someone he isn't just to left alone.

Believe me...there is another way to do it but you wind up scaring a lot of people in the process. Thankfully, I don't care. However, lots of others do, and it depends how much you care if they do.

Thanks Laney. I hope you don't run into these people who take up space in school as much as I did, but I think they are everywhere! It took me a while to figure out why they were there at all, the little parrots, but when I did figure it out, I lost a great deal of faith in the academia I'd come to envision as a future. Although I do understand why now. I wish you the best in your education and future plans as an SLP!

Bingo! Aimless, morale at work is so terrible right now! They have been talking lay-offs for weeks, have combined another location with ours so that we are now way over-staffed and now the weeding-out of the weak seems like it may commence just about at any time. This is I think why the nastiness has risen to an all-new level. Everyone is trying not to appear to be one of the weak.

Although that is no excuse for the attacks, I think people may have started bullying me because they fear what is going to happen to their jobs, and they think taking my job is going to somehow insure their own job. I don't think it works that way, but it must make them feel better.

But these aren't just small indignities lobbed on my person because I'm a little different, they are attacking my job and my character in a way that I can't disregard or put a blinder on for. I have done that before, just ignored things, but this is at a different level, and I've got to react and defend myself, stand up for myself regardless, this is my work history and identity here (who am I? Well, not Spiderman, but not the doormat either!), otherwise whether I keep the job or not, I will have gained nothing (but a paycheck--gulp --ohwell).

This way, I gain self-esteem and maybe some answers as to how to handle these problems in the future. (I for sure need to be more vocal, communicative, and persistant from the get go -- all things I'm bad at.) To have decided to defend myself, though, just in itself, makes me feel so much better.

You guys are very nice and sweet people ! Unfortunately, I don't think the nice thing works all the time. It's all in context though, which I can talk about while writing something, but while in the situation and having to deal with things on the spot, I'm not so great at seeing and judging, but sometimes the context and what is at stake is great enough to mean you have to leave behind what amounts to dealing with a common annoyance, like somebody rolling their eyes at you, to really having it out with those who will actually threaten you in some way, whether physically or with mental and emotional harrassment.

I'd also like to ask is it easier for boys to defend themselves than girls? It seems that way to me.

(I'd like to say thanks for the thread Aimless, and thanks for all the thoughts here from everyone. It is meant to help your son and I hope that it very much does, but it has also helped me along --

You're right, killing with kindness is better for inconsequential social situations. The people you are dealing with would probably interpret that as a weakness and zero in for the kill.

To both Aimless and Jul, I admire the both of you for your courage and determination to not let bullying become a destructive variable in both of your lives overall...

I was not really bullied in school. No one noticed me.

I was emotionally bullied by my father at times, but now I have a better understanding of how and why it happened. He is deceased now, I don't know how I'd deal with it if it was still happening. I think that's one reason why I've avoided committed relationships. Sometimes just the thought makes me feel trapped. Anyway, understanding his frustration and inability to deal with stress helps me not make the same mistake.

Thanks, I wish I'd decided to be more proactive earlier on. It's a part of learning to communicate, I guess.