Bullying vs. Stimming

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We found out recently that my son has aspergers. He started kindergarten recently. I have been doing lots of studying and what I have found is lots of people with autism/aspergers saying they wish they hadn't been made to act like everyone else because now no one believes they are autistic, among other reasons. Being forced to not stim seemed like a big thing that was upsetting to them. Which, from all my reading about their experiences, makes sense. What I wanted to know though, is what about bullying? Because I am so worried about my son being bullied at school. I don't mind him being himself, but I worry about if he could handle the bullying. Our current idea is to try and help him cope with bullying and only help him hide his stims if he wants us to help him do that. My husband is self-diagnosed, his parents only thought he had add, and he does worry a lot about bullying because he was bullied pretty badly in school. He said he wishes he had been taught how to act like everyone else if it meant avoiding the bullying. Which also makes sense to me. So I wanted to get some variety of opinions. Is it better to try to help our son hide his autistic tendencies, like stimming, in order to protect him from bullying or is it better to let him be who he is? Or is there somewhere in the middle that is better? Thanks for everyone's input!

If your son is being bullied for stimming and in general being himself, then that is not his fault, it is the fault of the bullies. I suggest talking to the school administration and expressing your concerns. Furthermore, I suggest giving your son as much love, support and encouragement as you can. Teach him how to stand up for himself, and help him be proud of who he is. It may not be perfect advice, but I believe this is really the best you can do for your son.

It's wonderful that you are involved in a positive way with helping your son face these challenges. I like the idea of speaking with the school administrator as they might not know that bullying is going on or under what circumstances and maybe they can make changes that would greatly help. There's just no good answer to this question and I've reflected on it a lot. I learned to hide my stimming in the face of bullying and ostracism, but even then I was still socially excluded. I learned to stim in ways that aren't noticeable, like rubbing my tongue on the inside surfaces of my teeth, moving fingers against one another in tiny motions that aren't visible, twiddling pens or pencils imperceptibly. I still got bullied somewhat in public school, including being attacked physically. I need to stim even now in order to focus my attention and manage stress and sensory overload. Autism just doesn't go away with age, even if I can fool people by acting normal under specific circumstances for a limited time. Over the years in my work and in my role as a manager I had to learn to behave in ways that supported my professional credibility which meant learning to "fake" natural eye movement, body language, tone of voice, facial expression, etc. I ended up having a very successful career and did some limited social interaction. But the most painful part was that I did this so long that I have lost the authentic "me" and at 61 years old, it is proving extremely hard to regain behaving authentically relative to my feelings and to who I really am. It's hard to say whether that is more or less painful than having lived a life that was devoid of many of the normal experiences that make one's life rich - I never went to my own prom in high school, never dated (although I've been married twice), never managed the "male bonding" thing... I used to think it was cruel that normal / non-autistic people were so quick to shun those who are just a little different, when a little tolerance and understanding would make a world of difference to the autistic. But I ultimately realized and accepted that it's how normal social folks are wired and that most people are good at heart. And surviving these challenges gives me experience and hope to offer others going through similar things.

Many children will grow out of stimming. Most of the time it is a substitution. One switches from a very visible way of stimming to one that is less difficult to observe.

Bullying can be a very difficult problem to deal with. For most males it peaks in Junior High School and for girls in High School. From my perspective it is almost like extreme torture. I wrote about my experiences in The Aspie Code

It depends on how obviously disabled your son seems.

When I was in primary school I had two class mates with downs syndrome (it wasn't a special ed class, those two had their own teacher and all other children weren't special ed). They were not bullied, because bullying someone disabled is much less socially acceptable than bullying someone else (or at least where I live).
I was bullied because bullying someone shy or socially awkward is much more socially acceptable than bullying someone disabled (I wasn't even diagnosed with autism then).

If your son's autism is severe enough that everyone needs to be told about his autism and that everyone notices that there is something 'wrong' with him rather than just that he is shy or awkward, if he's lucky the other children will (pretend to) be accepting because someone taught them that it is not alright to bully disabled people (but it's a matter of luck depending on who those other children are).
If he doesn't seem disabled but just socially awkward, then obvious stemming gives other children something they can use against him and makes him an obvious target for bullying. It's still a matter of luck. He could still have relatively understanding class mates that don't bully him.

As others have said, if obvious stims lead to bullying, you can try teach him less obvious ones and talk to the school administrators or teachers.
Lastly, I'm almost glad that I wasn't diagnosed when I was a child but had to meet the same expectations everyone else had to. What I'm not glad about is the extent to which my mother kept me socially isolated but that has got more to do with her own issues than with my autism. Knowing about my autism might have been a good thing if I had gotten help with learning social skills but would otherwise still have been expected to meet the same expectations, but in my family that would probably not have happened.
I'm just saying this to make clear that, when I say that being more obviously disabled can reduce bullying, I'm not saying that it is the more desirable state of being or that it will lead to fewer problems later on. I'm just saying that how his stims will be perceived can depend on how he will be perceived, which I can not guess since I do not know how obvious or severe your son's autism is.
What's the right course of action when it comes to teaching him to hiding his stims or not may partly depend on how severe or obvious his autism is and on how able he is to learn alternative ways to calm himself.

Bullying should be prohibited everywhere. It is but still, there are people who bully weak people.