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Is an ASD child capable of bullying

NAS17286

Hello,

I wonder if anyone has any experience of their ASD child being targeted by another ASD child in SEN school. 

My son is now suicidal after months of name-calling, being targeted in play, threatened with being physically hurt, actually being physically hurt, being excluded from invitations etc, 

School are failing to recognise this behaviour as bullying. They have yet to explain why, but I expect it will be something along the lines of it’s not intentional. The children are high functioning and the class teacher and class staff have tried so much to get the boy to stop. Nothing works. 

So my question is - is this bullying? The effects on my son are the same. He is frightened of this boy and deserves a safe environment. Can a child with ASD really not recognise or learn that their behaviour is wrong and must stop. The boy is also manipulative and tells lies. School know this. 

thanks for reading and for any thoughts. 

  • I mean it’s posable to be autistic and a jerk. Unfortunately I think generally it takes an autistic person to point out an autistic person is a jerk. Not because only autistic people have the moral authority but because it’s very hard for anyone other than an autistic person to point to the specific point where not understanding the other persons needs crossed into not caring about them instead.

    on the other hand is it posable to be so insensitive, as a consequence of autism, so as to deeply upset someone without realising? Absolutely. And in that case they won’t get each other’s behaviour until they hash it out, face to face, probably with a responsible adult to facilitate the conversation and stop it turning into name calling. Think of this as being an approach a bit like restorative justice.

    your son can get closure by understanding his bully’s motivations. The bully can be rehabilitated by understanding the consequences of his actions and the flimsiness of some of the excuses he’s used to justify it to himself.

    that approach could be quite productive but it might take hours of dialog if they are both stubborn and immature.

  • Hello ,

    I'm really sorry to hear that your son has been experiencing this. You may like to have a look at the following information from the NAS on bullying, which includes ways you may be able to support your son:

    https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/bullying/bullying/parents

    It also sounds like it would be important to raise this further with your son's school. The following page contains a lot of helpful information about education for a child with an autism: 

    https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/education 

    This includes information regarding getting extra support for your child in their education setting. 

    I hope this helps,

    ChloeMod