Son becoming a bully

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For the record there were a few kids in my school that actually WERE like cartoon character bullies. They came from really bad backgrounds...I don't know what there home situation was like but I am assuming their bullying behavior was a response to this.

In the back of my mind when he told me that he finally hit this kid in the nose I was glad. I remember in middle school I was being bullied constantly by one girl. Her entire group decided to step on board to bully me too. They followed me home from school one day to fight me. I kicked the ring leader in the shin so hard I left a pretty big bruise. She backed off and likewise her friends did too. After that her buddies and her laid off, and I wasn't made fun of anymore. It also gave me a little more self confidence.

I lived with the bullying partially because when I did say something to a teacher the bullying got worse. My parents were helpless, because their complaints went unheard.

Yep. The biggest pile of horse s**t that schools teach nowadays is this "violence never solves anything." They scream it and preach it yet.

How often do you hear about bullying stopping because you told teacher?

How often do you hear bullying stops because the bullies got the crap kicked out of them?

It all involves points in the process and the type of bullying involved. And the age of the kids.

Quite often bullying really can be nipped in the bud by peaceful means. We were quite successful with it with my son. We had a lot of support around us and the parents of those kids had no trouble letting their kids know that what they had done was absolutely not OK. There are also strategies kids can be taught about standing up for themselves verbally that can work really well; my daughter used those successfully and never had any real issues. In all these cases we were basically dealing with decent kids who mostly struggling with their own positions on the social ladder, and using inappropriate strategies to gain position.

But it has to be recognized that those techniques do not always work, and workshops for kids who are constantly bullied definitely do teach very specific physical means for "disarming" your opponent, and those programs do have strong support as well. Sometimes the only thing a bully will understand is that physical action back, that tells him you aren't as weak as he makes you out to be.

But I find this whole area real tricky for Aspies, because we've had a lot of stories here where it is the bully-victim, by the bad luck of his timing and location, who ends up taking the blame. In order to keep the victim out of trouble, it is real important to have gone through all the steps and to have attempted the other avenues first. In the best case scenario, by the time a kid acts physically in his own defense, it will make the other kids (and adults) see him as strong, and not just unable to control his impulses. But that timing can be tricky to achieve; you can't count on it working.

I fear for my son because of this exactly!! ! It became VERY clear to me the other night how different my son can be from other kids. He has a friend who has ADHD. The two of them got into trouble for putting little holes in my wall. My son just said, mom im sorry. We sould settle down. Then tried to convince his friend to stop. Frankly I didn't care which one it was, and told them both that they are equally responsible for the damage. My son just accepted that and put his things away. The ADHD boy was busy trying to find a way out of being in trouble. Lying to me, coming up with all kinds of excuses, etc. Later after this boy left, my daughter came to me and said it was for sure the other kid who damaged the walls.

It was then that I knew, my son could get into BIG TROUBLE with other people and shoulder the entire blame for something he did not do. It really is a scary thing.

I will approach the school about this issue at our next IEP meeting. I want to know that they are doing more than what they have been. This entire thing could have been avoided, I think, if they would have had some kind of intervention with the kids. Frankly, I think the one kid (popular, student council, etc.) is the problem. He does something and the kids in his group are like sheep. They all try and do what he does. Interestingly, one of my sons long time friends is in that group and so far he has not engaged in the facebook - bullying of my son. Of course he has been friends with my son for years, and knows about his issues and problems so most of the time he just blows the comments off.