Please help my son is stalking a girl during school...

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I see, you're saying the teasing and innuendo makes it confusing. I took Adamantium to be referring to where a group of boys wait in the hall where there are no teachers to prey on whoever, but you're talking about PDAs and girlfriends, where you're right, there might be giggling. I was sad reading what he wrote, thought there was more supervision and cameras and that that would help. And I suppose it does help, just maybe not enough.

Do you think your son would understand not to copy, though, if it were a group of boys preying on one girl who wasn't laughing? He seems like he could be misled, and maybe even have some confusion about when does no mean no, but would he understand if he saw a group commenting and pawing, that that group wasn't doing the right thing?

I can only hope. We're doing our best to teach him to do that.

Keep in mind that often, NT victims do "joke off" bullying by laughing or smiling - most people can tell they are fearful, but a kid on the spectrum probably would not.

I could never tell the difference between playful meanness and meanness. Other kids seemed to know when to be mean and have other kids take it well and I knew if I did that, they would react wrong so I didn't do it at all. I have also notice when a kid is joking, the victim is in trouble for getting upset but yet if I did something like that, I would be in trouble because my victim got upset. Double standard.

Now I just say there are social cues kids read and they are reading them so they know when its okay to do it. If you don't know when it's okay to do it, it's best you don't do it at all.

I think my son would understand, because he would tend to identify with anyone who was being victimized and get pissed off about it.

But there are places where what he didn't understand were surprising, e.g., needing to close bathroom doors...

I just brought up that example because it's a distressing thing that's going on at the moment, it's not an issue of my son joining in--those kids would never let him join anything they were doing--and he doesn't want to join them, either. They have completely different interests. But there are other, more complicated things. I am possibly more worried about my daughter who tries harder to fit in (my son has no interest in fitting in) and is confused and disturbed by some of the things she sees and hears.

But I am also thinking about the whole area of trying to infer the unwritten rules from observed patterns of behavior in others.

For example, my experience in America was pretty much of New York City for most of my life and this is a place where traffic signals are considered a suggestion by pedestrians. If no car is coming, almost everyone will cross against a red light.

So I was totally shocked an unprepared when I was a young adult visiting another American city and was stopped by the Police for crossing against the light when there was no traffic. I think they were going to give me a ticket but my surprise and disbelief was so strong that they just gave me a warning and told me that this wasn't New York...

How do you know, if you don't know?

I am sorry, I don't seem to be articulating this very well.

Aren't traffic lights a suggestion?

It seemed like your son wouldn't get involved in something really ugly and obviously so, more the gray stuff. I don't have an answer there, but Aspie kids don't have a monopoly on socially inappropriate behavior and I know I've made the mistake of assuming I'm wrong because someone's upset with me.....and I think part of the solution is our kids need to be allowed and empowered to trust their judgment sometimes, to think about right and wrong and maybe be quiet about it and check with someone before speaking up, but not assume other people know what is appropriate and do it.

Too often the message to kids (and adults) on the spectrum is "you do stuff wrong, you miss social cues, you're not appropriate, listen to us". I certainly don't think the solution is for kids to police the world according to a rigid set of rules, but sometimes, I really wish my first instinct when someone hurts me wasn't to look for what I did wrong to deserve it. Because sometimes, my minor misstep really isn't an appropriate reason for that full out assault that ensues, and life is hard when you're always waiting for that, and wondering if maybe it's ok people hurt you because of missing those cues.

I think you need to teach him that when a girl says no, no means no.

You might also to ask him to think of someone he doesn't to be with, and ask him how he would feel if that person kept bothering him, so that he can envision how she is perceiving him. You should also tell him that social relationships of all kinds are not about just him, they are about him and the other person, and if both people don't want to be friends, then the relationship won't work, and by trying to pursue it, not only will the other person not want to be friends with him, but people who see what's going on won't want to be friends with him either.

You really have to tell it straight with people on the spectrum.

Problem with "no means no" is that lots of kids depend on body language (which our kids often don't see) to express a no. Or get too scared to say no. Or otherwise don't explicitly say no when that is what they want.

I tell my son that anything involving someone else's body requires him to ASK PERMISSION. Nothing without a YES. Beyond that, anything involving a girl (his stated preference) requires permission - calling, hanging out with, anything beyond what he would do with any other friend. I also talk about how the boundaries are different between boys than with girls (he is socially savvy enough to know that, but not all kids are, and I find it important to make it explicit.)