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Bullying - "Being Me" Series

longman

I wanted to bring this up to see if others perceived things the same way.

Anti-bullying charities have come up with a series of bullying personal stories at school age, interspersed with guides to teachers. These are publicised on NAS website news, and there's a link to them on the NAS wbpages connected to the news story.

The stories seem to tackle autism in a secondary sense, a young carer with an autistic brother, a boy being made aware of others with autism, about being a geek. However the last guidance to teachers, right at the end, is specifically about autism.

The explanation goes part of the way. It covers young people in the spectrum being drawn into play to mislead them, wind them up or even get them into trouble. This is identified with unstructured time, so the solution is providing more structured time. It is mostly about people on the spectrum misunderstanding the intentions of others.

There's nothing here about sensory overload and a little only about social communication. It is mostly about being gullible.

On one hand I'm really glad to see autism taken into account in anti-bullying literature, because it has been missed out for so long. I just feel it "hardly scratches the surface" - ie I'd have hoped to see deeper understanding - maybe given time.......

It would be useful though if others who were bullied at school would have a look at the "Being Me" series and see if it would resolve the kinds of experiences you had. It would also be useful if parents of children currently being bullied had a look. Is it enough, or could it be improved?

This is a start, and perhaps with feedback it might be developed beneficially.

  • I have to confess (despite giving the Government a hard time over this in my comments on here) I did get most of my secondary education at a posh school. There they regarded bullying as a toughening up exercise (and yeah it did toughen me up even though it took decades to recover from the fall out). But in those days (early to mid 60s) there was no such thing as autism (well not where I lived).

    There is still that view of bullying around. Also there are a lot of do gooders identifying the bullies as the ones needing sympathy and therapy. And ..... believe it or not, one known manifestation of autism is becoming a bully.

    The type of bullying often encountered by people on the spectrum is collective, rather than one or two specific bullies. That is to say being different makes you a target and everyone else takes advantage, even if it is only doing nothing to help. The bullying the public mostly think of is one or two heavyweights intimidating younger kids, stealing their pocket money etc. That's what is thought to be toughening up.

    I was put on boxing lessons and weight lifting after school to make me tougher - it just added to the entertainment value. I wasn't much bothered by people getting in close enough to hit. Winding me up to melt down at the right moment could be achieved by people out of striking range.

  • stateofindependence said:

    I'd like to see zero tolerance backed up with a new DSM criteria of 'pervasive bullying disorder', and the little s**ts and their families told that this behaviour is not normal. 

    Hell yes...dam do I wish that had been my line

  • Absolutely agree with Outraged. 

    I consider myself lucky that I grew up in the 70s. I was bullied, but it is nothing compared to the horrors kids have to face today with social media. 

    I'd like to see zero tolerance backed up with a new DSM criteria of 'pervasive bullying disorder', and the little s**ts and their families told that this behaviour is not normal. 

  • longman said:

    ...so the solution is providing more structured time. 

    "Providing more stuctured time" is a euphamism for restricting the AS childs freedom and as such is unacceptable. A more proper method for reducing the incidence of bullying (in general and this specific type) would be a genuine zero-tolerance policy.

    These behaviours qualify as hate crimes in adulthood, but schools continue to condone the orginised abuse of their AS pupils.

  • NAS18906 said:

    Given the target audience of junior school kids and their teachers...

    Im not sure how one document can attempt to meaningfully instruct both groups. 

  • Former Member
    Former Member

    Hi Longman

    The series covers a range of "different" people, not just people with autism. The autism specific leaflet deals with Liam and Annika to give the two sides of having a difference and having different people in your class.

    Given the target audience of junior school kids and their teachers I think they have packed a lot into a small space.

    A lot of Liam's story rang bells for me I would have been glad of a bit more tolerance and inclusion at school.