Bullies and other delights

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Ok, I need some strategies here, please.

My 5 year-old has had two years of bussing so far, from and to preschool and now from and to kindergarten. And in both bus situations, on busses that were only half full, he has encountered bullies (in the first instance the other kids were only 4 -- how sad is that?)

My son is enthusiastic, friendly, and wants to like and get along with everyone. He doesn't have an intuitive sense of "proper" social etiquette, though, and so he comes across as a weirdo. Or worse, he gets in people's faces or fails to read when they want him to back off/go away and he just keeps on talking to them. He's very puppy-like, eager to please but with no real ability to control his impulses or interpret how others are reacting.

This year we've had a real hard time with one older girl in particular on the bus who he really WANTS to talk to, but she's got her own issues and doesn't always want to interact. When my son just persists and starts to irritate her, she acts in a very passive-aggressive manner, pretending to be friendly but actually she's just winding him up.

We've encountered that in other situations where a kid will intentionally do something that sets my son off. One family we play with once in a while has a boy who will do this, basically just wind my son up to watch him spin.

I've talked to the various adults involved in the situations and on the preschool bus I talked to the kids directly, but what I'd like is to figure out some way to help my son because, let's face it, bullies are everywhere and he's going to need to know how to deal with this kind of stuff for the rest of his life.

My question is how do I explain to my son -- or arm him in some way -- that this kind of behavior exists, what it looks like, and what do about it? Is it possible to "explain" the stupid complexities of social behaviors to someone who doesn't have an intuitive sense of the rules? He can handle discussions about different feelings and emotions, but this is much more subtle.

Help?

vozamer~

I can totally identify! Social "norms" and abstract social "rules" are challenging for our little guys. Let's face it, kids can be cruel to one another whether neuro-typical or not. They always look for buttons to push on other kids and our kid's buttons are just more obvious than others.

One thing that we did with our son that seemed to work well was role playing. The bus always seemed to be a hot spot for potential problems and meltdowns. We set up our dining table chairs in our kitchen like a bus. My husband or I would be the bus driver and the other parent and our 16 yr. old son (who also rides the bus with his brother and is a big help) would be other students on the bus. One of us would begin picking at our AS son or intentionally ignoring him when he would try to speak to us, etc. We would practice appropriate responses/reactions this way BEFORE the incidents occured and AFTERwards too to help him remember what behaviors were appropriate or inappropriate. Repetition really helps them learn socially acceptable behaviors. We also used some bullying behaviors that he had exhibited in the past himself to give him good, concrete examples of what bullying can be and/or look like. We would each take turns role playing bullying behaviors by making faces, saying specific phrases he himself had said before, etc. and then having him identify when we were bullying or being a bully. We would also try to make the emotional link for him by asking him how that made him feel and giving him time to verbalize it. We would ask him how he should respond to someone who is being a bully to him and help him figure out what response was appropriate vs inappropriate. We also hung up signs and posters in his room and our kitchen of alternative behaviors he could choose when someone is bullying him (ignore, walk away, tell an adult, etc.).

Another great idea would be to take a camera and make faces displaying different emotions (angry, sad, irritated, happy, etc.) and putting those in a little photo albumn for him with labels describing each face. You might even let him try either taking the pics or making the faces himself because hands on is so good for these guys...helps get the point across! Labels are a very important and effective tool for AS children as well as visual cues! Labeling behavior is so important for them. We actually made a poster with the word "Bully" written inside a circle with a line marking it out like on a no smoking sign. We then took his bare feet and painted the soles with red, waterbased paint (some kids won't be able to tolerate such sensory stimuli) and then cut out little feet from white construction paper that he could then tape on his "Stomp out Bully" poster each time he displayed self-control by choosing non-bullying behaviors even when others were bullying him. We also ended up not having him ride the bus home from school in the afternoons because this time of day always seemed to be very challenging for him. My husband or I will pick him up from school every afternoon instead. He still rides the bus to school every morning but it's a new day and he's in a good mood in the mornings. It's not a lot of fun going to get him every afternoon when the bus comes right by our house, but it's best for him. He's had about all he can handle after a full day of school and trying to be self-controlled. It's a sacrifice, but he's worth it.

Social stories are a great way to teach him about social "rules" understanding also. Go to http://www.thegraycenter.org/Social Stories.htm for further explanation about how these work.

These are just some thoughts. I know they sound like a lot of work but your son is worth it. Visual cues, labeling, hands-on, role playing, role modeling are all wonderful tools in helping our children learn those very abstract, unspoken social "rules" and "norms". We also used these to teach our son about such abstracts concepts as sarcasim and tact. It really does work!

God bless you guys!

You mentioned you talked to the kids directly on the bus - what did you tell them? To leave him alone? Or that he has XYZ?

The first step is to do damage control on the part you can control - perhaps teaching your son that he is to remain seated and quiet on the bus. We had to do this for our son, he was about to lose busing privileges, and he learned how to ignore the other kids. This lead to one of the other kids getting kicked off but because he sat quietly our son got to remain on the bus. (Important in a one vehicle family!).

As for bullying, my son is 11, and a big boy at that, and just last night he came home with mud all over his new bike from the *much* smaller kids down the street. He absolutely will not fight back against these kids, no matter how big or small they are (although he has no problem fighting with his little sister!).

I suspect bullies are just going to be a way of life, for lack of a better word I was bullied (or attempted) at the supermarket the other day. Bullies grow up to drive cars and push grocery carts, but they are still bullies.

Teaching our kids to ignore them first, get to safety second, is probably the best course of action, IMHO.

Sorry...I forgot an underscore on the website addy...YIKES! http://www.thegraycenter.org/Social_Stories.htm.

Also, something we do whenever our son gets a new bus driver is we write a little note that our son can give to them when he gets on the bus. It tells them that our son has AS and explains some of his challenges. This gives the bus driver much needed information to make informed decisions about seating arrangements, responses to poor behavior choices, etc. Our AS son sits at the front of the bus near the bus driver. Altho our 16 yr. old son sits near the back of the bus, if the bus driver is having challenges with his little brother, she'll have him come sit up front with him. She probably wouldn't be as accomodating if we hadn't have clued her in about our son's AS. Including as many people as you can into the loop is a good idea, especially if they have frequent interaction with your child.

God bless!

Oh, awesome advice! This is something we had to role play with our son as well during the dining room chair "bus" role playing! It worked wonders for a problem he was having. He liked to turn around and sit up on his knees so that he could yell/talk to his brother near the back of the bus. We also practiced sitting flat on our bottom, facing front along with all the other behaviors (ignoring, etc.)! When he asked us why this sitting on his bottom and facing front was so important, we explained to him it was to keep him safe. He needed that concrete reasoning behind the behavior choice and then he got it! Good advice!