I think I understand and your elaboration certainly helped. But I’m not passing judgement, I just hope you’ll agree that you need to take some responsibility (or all, depending on circumstances) for those feelings of social anxiety.
Besides that I also think that you should explain to your kid that having feelings for someone is nothing to be ashamed of, everybody feels that way sometimes, it’ll happen when it happens, etc.
I agree with this. Adults in authority need to step in when they see improper behavior, and especially when a problem is developing. However, children should avoid running to the teacher at the slightest provocation. That’s a crucial distinction that’s worth remembering.
Teasing often is. I don’t know what your childhood was like, but I can assure you that repeated harassment is commonplace among children.
If I had children, I would prefer that they did not resort to that kind of language. Having said that, I think that other dopers have offered valuable advice on how to help children toughen up and deal with these taunts.
Is it wrong to call them “normal kids” now?
True, of course. I was bullied as a child, and I also experienced the kind of teasing that it sounds like this is. They are not quite the same thing.
One thing is that certain kids seem to attract the kind of teasing that leads to what we would both call bullying/ harassment. This is not to say that this is their fault, but that some reactions are better than others.
YMMV. ISTM that this is third grade level stuff. Ergo, it needs a third grade level response. A comeback that is too clever or too witty is in some ways counter-productive. It shows that the teasing is getting too much of a response. As well as being hard to think up on the spur of the moment.
What I am aiming for is something mindless and dismissive, to show that the teasing is not worthy of, and will not receive, any significant response. And it is my experience that third graders talk this way anyway.
A shrugged “Whatever” conveys the same message, if appropriate to the child and the situation.
Regards,
Shodan
A third-grade response doesn’t have to include insults. I’d rather not teach my children (if I had any) to hurl insults at other children, especially at that tender young age.
And that’s all you really require. No need for expletives like “Bite me” or insults such as “fart breath.”
I know, I know, I probably rolled my eyes the first couple of dozen times I heard that too… Now it’s just part of the jargon of the “trade”, so to speak.
Yeah, it is awfully politically correct. We wouldn’t want the kids with a significant disorder to hear they aren’t “normal” now, would we. It’s alway puzzled me how upset people can get about whether they’re “normal” or not.
This sort of teasing was considered harassment at my son’s elementary school. The teaser would be guilty of harassing both Suzy and Johnny. It would be dealt with.
Well, there you’re preaching to the choir. In the thirty odd years since that period, (there is often, but not always, a considerable amount of growing up that occurs between 10 and 40 in men), I’ve tried to overcome the things that scare me. First by understanding, then by confronting, and finally by getting accustomed to them. It has worked for social situations, heights (the skydiving), and lately, physical confrontations (self defense) and public singing.
About having feelings for a girl, your words mirror closely the ones I plan to use when this situation comes up. It will probably be much kinder than threatening to tell the teacher and have the kid forced to change classroom “so his marks wont go down” like was done to me.
On a different note, my ability to post is about to be severely restricted in the next little while, so I wanted to thank everyone who helped out here. I truly do appreciate it.
Because it would be seen as tattling (i.e. getting the authorities involved when you can handle it yourself), and make the kid seem like a teacher’s pet, therefore eliciting more teasing when the teacher can’t do anything about it.
I really don’t understand why people freak so much out about this sort of thing. Bullying is intimidation, not merely teasing. This kid is already different enough by being autistic. The last thing he needs is for the kids to think of him as needing adult support to handle his problems. If they really are bullying, they’ve just found a very easy target.
FTR: my daughter is also autistic. I am a teacher and I remember my schooldays very well indeed. My daughter is very pretty and has had the ‘Johnny loves Suzy’ thing too; TBH, I think most kids have.
It’s a social situation that can be awkward - it’s really not bullying. It’s usually the kind of thing done among friends; you know how friends will also be more likely to trade mild ‘yo mama’ insults that they wouldn’t with an enemy?
That makes it difficult for autistic kids to deal with, so you’re right to ask for advice about it. The best advice is to teach your son some stock phrases, like the ones suggested above, and also teach him not to be worried about it. For that, you need to not be worried about it yourself.
I understand you being worried about this sort of thing for your son; I’ve always been worried about my daughter in social situations too, and was terrified about her starting secondary (middle) school. She’s actually doing well - really well.
My daughter also used to do the inappropriate hugging thing and I think that some of the stuff her autism outreach workers did with her really helped with this - they wouldn’t tell her what to do, but share stories and lead her towards discovering the answer on her own.
They’d have a very simple scenario, like this one:
'Johnny often plays ball with Nathan at break. Nathan often passes the ball to Johnny and doesn’t get mad if he misses. Nathan is Johnny’s friend. On Friday after break, Nathan sees Johnny talking to a girl called Suzie. Nathan calls out “Johnny loves Suzie! Johnny loves Suzie!” Johnny doesn’t love Suzie - she’s just his friend - so gets very annoyed and shouts ‘I do NOT love Suzie!’
Next day at break Nathan asks Johnny to play ball again and Johnny says no. Johnny goes to look for Suzie, but she won’t talk to him.’
I think the teacher would ask something like ‘what happened next?’ and ‘let’s go back to this part of the story here, and change it so that it has a happier ending…’ And then she’d learn some stock phrases to fall back on.
Getting the teacher involved should not be one of the happier ending scenarios. The teacher would have to tell the other kids off, who would be bewildered, and not want to talk to Johnny any more in case they got in trouble again. and Johnny would be marked down as the kid who goes running to the teacher because of what really is ordinary friendly teasing. Friends do tease each other - that’s hard for autistic kids to understand, but they can, with time.
If teasing of this sort exceeded the anxiety that you felt when performing CPR on your Dad, then you need to deal with your own memories; I know you’ll be doing your best not to pass your anxiety on to your child, but I also know that it’s hard not to.
Now, if you were talking about an entire class of kids surrounding your son and chanting it whenever he appeared, that would be bullying, but that’s not what I get from your OP.