WTF Article claims Positive Effects of Bullying Autistics

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Yes, now the bullies have opportunity to bully 24 hours a day, everyday, and this is a significant factor in the kinds of oppression and dangers that the currently young generation is faced with. The increasing teenage suicide rates arising from cyberbullying is one of the specific risks young people now face - and it is a spinechilling phenomenon.

I would think that parents suing schools for their kids being bullied would make schools do something about the bullying finally to avoid lawsuits.

But why is it okay for people to take movies of people being abused or bullied but it's not okay for the victims to take movies of their abusers or bullies?

My school also had "keep your hands to yourself" so no one was ever beaten up and anyone got into trouble if they got into a psychical fight but that didn't stop the teasing and harassment because all they had to do was provoke you to get you to react and then you would be the one in trouble, not them because they never touched you. I was given the "I had to toughen up" approach by my school principal but I couldn't avoid it even when I walked away because they would follow me and keep doing it until I would break down and react or give in whatever they wanted me to do to get them to leave. But one thing that bothers me about it is she had the rule in her school about respect but I don't see how teasing and harassment is respect. I am still trying to understand that logic.

Actually, what my dad did was to sit the bullies and their parents down in the principal's office and tell them this: "This behavior would be considered criminal in an adult. Beating, burning, stabbing, and sexual touching another person would get you ARRESTED and SENT TO JAIL. Period. And guess what, it's a crime for kids to do it to other kids. If you do this again to my daughter, I will call the police and have you sent to jail." And he said to the principal and teacher who kept ignoring the bullying, "If you don't put a stop to this, I will sue all of you for everything you have."

It didn't get rid of the bullying completely, but it did cut down the really bad stuff (like people trying to burn my eye and stab me with scissors). Use my dad's test: if a stranger did an act of violence to you, an adult, and you know you would call the police on them, then it is not okay for one child to do it to another child. We don't respond to criminals by beating them with clubs or shooting them in a duel, we call the cops.

It is not a character-growing experience. It is a CRIME. This is a growth experience for bullies too: to learn that they cannot get away with assault and battery or sexual harassment. They cannot get away with theft, extortion, slander, or cheating. They've been taught by their parents that violence is the solution to everything. It's time to learn a different lesson.

Just in case anyone is laboring under the general impression that the modern autistic kid is living in a lovely, bully-free cocoon provided by helicopter parents, happily listening to strains of "Let It Be..."

(Okay, I'm sure nobody actually thinks that here on WP, but I'm just in a lousy mood today. Sorry for the grumpy attitude.)

Maybe you've heard of this one, the autistic teen who was tricked into dumping a bucket of urine and spit on himself for an ALS ice bucket challenge.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/15/us/horrif ... challenge/

Good Spiderpig.

No wonder that woman and Autism Speaks have a connection of some sort. Like, the gal's app is even on Autism Speaks' hit list! A whole lot of raging blatherers, bull-scatters, and dark secrets - that's what both parties are.

Is that sarcasm?

Oh, now you are just being negative. Karen Kabaki-Sisto, M.S. CCC-SLP, certified Speech-Language Pathologist, Applied Behavior Analysis instructor *and* iPhone/Android Autism App peddler says to turn that frown upside down! Clearly this is a *growth* opportunity for the kid!

"The victim and the five charged juveniles were and are friends and classmates. They regularly associate with one another and, at times, engage in distasteful and sophomoric pranks,"

See? Because he let them bully him in the past, they became his *friends*. Autism was *good* for him. And, he was able to learn new skills and knowledge, like finding out how to get urine and tobacco spit out of his hair.

"He was embarrassed because he did not know what the contents were until afterwards, and then he didn't want anybody to know," the mother told the station. "They used his phone to tape it, and they put it up on Instagram."

See? Because of "bullying" he even learned about videos, instagram and modern phone technology - those are important skills in this day and age.


(sorry, I got so angry all that would come out of my fingers was sarcasm)

The responses here are mostly dismissive of the author's assertion that good opportunities for intervention are available to parents when their autistic child is bullied.

Thus, the conclusion is that most here don't believe in 'bullying intervention' (i.e., in effecting positive change when bullying happens, so it is less likely to happen again). Rather, apparently, they believe in telling the kid, "tough luck kid, it sucks, nothing to learn from it, nothing positive can change from it, just take the abuse next time".

Last edited by LoveNotHate on 15 Oct 2015, 7:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Edenthiel: Yeah, unfortunately there's a long and very distasteful tradition of special needs people being "friends" of others and being convinced to do "fun" things, then later had it turned around on them that this was the way they wanted it. No, what they probably wanted was to have actual friends who would actually be kind, not trick them and then accuse them of wanting everything they got.

One thing that comes to mind when I think of that is (although the person in question was intellectually delayed, not autistic) Charley in Flowers for Algernon. His "friends" at the bakery were always doing fun little pranks and laughing and having fun by, for instance, tripping Charley when he walked by. Everyone would laugh and Charley knew how much he was loved and accepted since his good friends were always funning around with him like that. Earlier in his history Charley (in the book - it was fiction, first a short story and then expanded into a novel) had asked some nice friends to help him write a love letter to a little girl in his class, Harriet. The good friends assured Charley they were writing down just what Charley said. He knew how much they liked him by how they kept laughing as they were helping him by writing the letter. Charley gave the letter and a little locket to Harriet. The next day Harriet wouldn't look at Charley, and Charley was beaten up severely by Harriet's brothers, who told him never to come near his sister and that he was a pervert.

Yes, it's so cute and adorable when friends fun around with the differently-abled person. All the more precious when horrible outcomes happen and are blamed on the special needs person because hey, he's the one who "went along with" something he didn't understand the potential outcome of.

Now, obviously autism doesn't have to encompass intellectual delay by any means. But not fully understanding social cues, desperation to have any friends at all and apparent sudden acceptance has, I am 100% sure, made many an autistic person do things s/he wasn't sure about but was encouraged to. "Go ahead, you want us to be friends with you, right? Are you sure you're cool enough to hang with us? Because ALL the cool kids do X."

Yeah. That's ALL the autistic person's fault. Because s/he went along with it in the beginning...right?

But at least the autistic person is getting a good education in how to deal with people. So in the end, such "friendships" are totally worth it, and quite appropriate.

Sigh. Oh well.

Last edited by NowhereWoman on 15 Oct 2015, 7:28 pm, edited 4 times in total.

I can understand how you came to your conclusions until the second paragraph which, I'm sorry, still is in no way to be assumed. I'm sorry, there's no sense to that at all. There is no reason to believe that because we don't believe certain specifics of what the author said - which have been noted in detail - we believe that there should not be bullying intervention or that we believe anyone should tell the child "tough luck." That is simply a reach that doesn't even make sense.

I would bet my bottom neuron that nobody here believes a child should be told tough luck, any more than any of us believe a child should be told bullying has "perks" (the author's words) and that they should be able to learn from bullying, as that latter gives the assumption that there are positives to bullying, and that overall idea is extremely dangerous. I have no idea how you turned our disgust at accepting bullying as being positive into this idea that any of us believe bullying should continue. I would bet my second-to-last neuron that rather, we believe bullying should NOT BE TOLERATED period and certainly not be glamorized as a great teaching lesson and a good way to have teams come together and for the autistic person to make friends.

Also, I agree that some of us - or I'll only speak for myself here, it's not appropriate for me to speak on behalf of other people, really, so I'll just own it...I agree that *I* have been largely dismissive of whatever actual good may be in that article.

However, I don't believe that sticking a few non-harmful and potentially positive comments into an overall potentially very hurtful message make the article worthwhile overall.

Take this into the context of another unacceptable, potentially harmful physically and definitely harmful emotionally act. Let's say, rape. What if there were an article called "The 10 Perks of Rape" in which rape was described as not being all bad because of such reasons as: rape makes people more aware of rape, it brings people together, it helps the raped person make friends, for example by reaching out to other rape victims. Instant new friends. In addition, rape helps teach rape victims how to deal with rapists, something that's a great benefit to learn. Stuck in the middle of all that insanity perhaps there are a few sentences about how interventions should be in place for rape victims (the one positive and acceptable theme in the article). Would you say "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, there were some really good points made within this article about the perks of rape?"

Perfect analogy; thank you for putting into words the thoughts I could not.

I honestly don't know where you are drawing that conclusion that we believe not agreeing with the author means we believe in telling the kid "tough luck, take the abuse." Absolutely the opposite, in fact. I think you are reading into this what you want to, and maybe you need to go back and read our stories again. My principal and teacher were the ones saying "tough luck, kid" and doing nothing. They were the ones who refused to do bullying intervention. There were three years of complaints from my parents. My parents were the ones who had to step in and get nasty toward the bullies and school in order to stop what was A CRIME, not "kids being kids." It never should have gotten to the point that my dad had to put the fear of the law into some kid no older than me just so I could stop being injured daily.

I concede that probably the author was not saying that we should permit bullying as a character building way to meet new friends and increase awareness of autism in our schools, but that is how I initially read it. I still don't understand how being bullied was supposed to get me new friends. I had very few friends back then, because I was a social pariah. Who would want to be friends with me when it might lead to them getting beat up too? The few friends I had were already outcasts: the girl with the stutter, the only Asian girl in a Southern US town, the geek boy who was probably autistic too. And my teachers were not interested in monitoring or stopping bullies. They were trying to get through the day with a minimum of effort. They perceived me as one of the problems, as much as the bullies. And her final point, about bullying increasing self esteem, is patently false, as you can see reading the stories here.

Bully Online is a very comprehensive website and this section on school bullying addresses most facets of it and the myths about it:

http://www.bullyonline.org/schoolbully/myths.htm

I could feel a braincell die for every word that i have read in that article. Everyone in this world is now dumber for having read it. 0/10, straight into the trashcan

The only thing I've learned from being bullied is how mean children can be and how to ignore people. Wait, that's two things...

For some reason, acting like people don't exist can really make them feel like crap. Plus it's great way to avoid sounding dumb and that being used against me. I'd rather have someone ask "Are you deaf?" than say "You're stupid. Blah blah blah blah."