Harassment

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I read that AS children are more given to harassment than any other children. As an emotional AS, I think it's true.

But harassment can come in all forms at all ages. It can happen from the school bully, or the boss at work, maybe a coworker.

Maybe even a friend sometimes does something that isn't right, or upsets your child.

But I was wondering what do you do when your child feels harassed? Do you go to their school? To their boss? if so, with what?

i think one of the first things I need to remember is that , unfortunately, my son does not always interpret things correctly.....in the past, i've marched into school angered by my son's reports of being harrassed-only to find out that his allegations are incorrect...........i always support my son & say that i will stand by him ( and i do), but i also take what he says with a grain of salt.

my son has been bullied in the past....we still address the issues. just we're careful when we go about determining what happened

What I've done has depended a bit what is described by my son and who is involved. Fortunately, incidents have been rare, but they also often occur with kids who are actually my son's friends to one degree or another. I will give my son suggested responses, and I have several times gone to the child and asked them about the incident. In that way, I get their side of the story, and a chance to pin point issues (one child told me he had been dared - well, you know, that isn't a good reason to hurt someone, and we talked about that, and what his response would be next time. I also noted that if he couldn't be decent to my son, I wasn't going to want to do him anymore favors - at the time I did him a LOT of favors. That talk worked like a charm).

I've never had to go to the school or to a parent. It's always been resolved working with my son and the other kids. One parent did find about it some other way, and called me to let me know that she was working with her son to make sure it never happened again.

One difficult thing I've observed is that my son makes it difficult for other kids to know where the line between a fun joke, and actual harassment, lies. He literally volunteers to become a punching bag. He thinks it's funny. He doesn't hurt easily, physically. But, geez, it can go overboard so fast and while he'll scream "stop" when it gets there, that is difficult for boys feeding on adrenalin to do. Appeal to their baser instincts, and halting at the right point may not happen. I can't read into those kids minds and understand how all that distorted play affects their overall image of him, either. I've just told him to please stop playing in that way, that I see it leading to problems, and it just isn't appropriate. But I'm rarely on the playground, so I can't know if he's taken that to heart. I only know that he seems to be surrounded by kids who genuinely like him, but that his overall image at school is a mix.

as far as determining what happened, we've been lucky in that the situations that occurred, occurred in the presence of his brother ( who's NT), and/or his best friend ( who is also NT)......they both are very supportive of my son, and won't hesitate to say whether or not son has misinterpreted the situation. they've also worked to help son try to understand the situation from a different perspective...........i used to listen to teachers, but i've learned that's a crap shoot. some teachers are accurate in their perceptions, and some are not

Some teachers could even be Aspies and take their frustrations out on your kid.

whereas it's quite true that some teachers could have aspergers/do have aspergers....this was not the case in at least 3 of the situations. the teachers were these former jocks who looked at my kid, the geek, and decided that he must have started things because the jocks who were involved in the incident couldn't possibly have started things

And we all know how that goes.

Hopefully it wasn't TOO much like "Revenge of the Nerds"

felt just like the movie........at one point, the same kids ( jocks) were on the school bus using a pencil to poke another student and to poke holes in the seats. the bus driver noticed it, and refused to leave the school until the principal came out and addressed the situation. imagine the drivers surprise, when the principal said that the kids were good kids & the driver must have been mistaken !

the jocks claimed the holes were there before they( the jocks) got there.....and the principal believed them.