Trouble with Younger Siblings
Has anyone out there had this problem? Our older daughter (16) is an Aspie and has been very badly bullied for years--to the point of suffering from PTSD. Our younger daughter (13) has her own set of problems, but is not an Aspie and has had much more social success. She has some of the same superficial characteristics (interest in fashion, etc.) as the people who bullied our older daughter, and recently the older daughter has begun to identify the younger as "a bully" and react to her in extremely negative ways.
As far as we can tell, this is completely unjustified--in fact, daughter #2 has shown compassion for #1, has tried to stop incidents of bullying in her own school, and is basically a nice kid. Of course, being 13, she is sometimes sarcastic with her older sister (and us), and sometimes has temper tantrums directed against us, which really upset daughter #1.
Any suggestions on how to get older daughter to deal with the age-appropriate conflicts with her younger sister, without seeing her as a "bully"?
Don't have any siblings in our house, but DS frequently confuses "bully" with all kinds of stuff, especially when it's stuff he doesn't like. This manifests in two ways: he categorizes people as bullies based on superficial stuff (like their choice in clothing, etc.) or, more frequently, he can't tell the difference between bullying and simple disagreement, or bullying and normal rule-breaking.
That said, we've found that kids who are more socially apt than him sometimes get away with bullying him because they act nice in front of adults - in particular, one of his friends whose brother has AS, and whose mother is very invested in her son's friendship with DS for that reason, often manipulates DS into covering for him when he does something wrong - and then blames DS's disability.
I would make extra-sure that the problem isn't something you are missing that your 16-year-old knows about but can't prove or articulate. Often DS knows something is wrong, but can't say what.
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That said, we've found that kids who are more socially apt than him sometimes get away with bullying him because they act nice in front of adults - in particular, one of his friends whose brother has AS, and whose mother is very invested in her son's friendship with DS for that reason, often manipulates DS into covering for him when he does something wrong - and then blames DS's disability.
I would make extra-sure that the problem isn't something you are missing that your 16-year-old knows about but can't prove or articulate. Often DS knows something is wrong, but can't say what.
I used to have that same problem (the bolded part) when I was younger, too. Unfortunately, the only way in which I learned the difference b/tw mere annoyance and actual bullying was as I got older and encountered "mean girls" in the upper elementary grades, and also more subtle forms of bullying with "friends" who were controlling and possessive.
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