10 yr old autistic daughter being badly bullied.

I’m so grateful for your insight - that’s really helpful! Thanks for taking time to respond, I will take that on board! 

The way I see things, (and it's not a universally held point of view hereabouts) is that WE Autists are always going to stand out unless we learn "protective camoflage". 

Your daughters present circumstances are intolerable, and her immediate future looks to be difficult too, NONE of which will help support her personal happiness and sense of self. She's also just about to enter a period of involuntary drug taking (puberty!) Which I remember my own ND daughter going though with mixed feelings of horror. (It was all horror, but so many different types...;c) 

My ND daughter got though her challenges though and so will yours with a bit of support and reasonable luck.. I'd personally tell her straight: Autism makes you different to the other people, you can't help that. BUT you can be either "nice" diffferent or "nasty" different...

She can have a bright future, I feel, and that's what she needs to focus on, whilst you guys help her to get through the present.

Teach her basic economics and frugality and fixing skills, and self reliance as much as you can whilst you still have a window of opportunity.

To be "bullied" you have to be available to be bullied. Once I discovered that there were other things to do with my breaks than go where the social stuff was happening, I found that to be quite fulfilling and missing out on "socialisation" not quite so unpleasant.

I actually did a year in a notorious bullying environment, when I was 12 but for me that lasted only as long as it took them to realise that I was the premier model aeroplane builder in the school with other fairly advanced useful skills... The bullying ends as soon as you add value to the group. Sometimes you can't add value to a particular group, so you move on and try elsewhere. This is where being a genuinely nice person makes a crucial difference, of course.  

No, indeed. It sounds as though you are doing your level best for your daughter.

I'm not generally a fan of excluding kids. Generally their bad behaviour speaks of an unaddressed need of some sort, be it something at home, a neurodivergence, or an MH issue. But where there is a real and present danger to others; either other kiddies or staff, I think the school are taking unnecessary risk by not excluding

Thankyou so so much, this is really helpful. 

Thankyou for responding, I completely agree. It’s very frustrating that I cannot change school policy. They have firmly said they won’t expel him. By putting my daughter on a reduced timetable - I just had to do something, rather than nothing at all, to remove triggers, and take pressure off her. My main focus is to help my daughter get through the end of the year, get high school ready, reduce The anxiety because of the bullying and general struggles with autism …. As well as giving her space from this boy and not completely making her feel isolated from school - it’s been a nightmare. Whichever way I turn, it’s been hard. 

Ok, I see. I think the boy needs removing from the school though, not your daughter.

What have the school done about the bullying? Actually, this beyond bullying and is an assault. If they are over 10; the age of criminal responsibility, I'd go to the police.

Your daughter won't feel safe or even begin to process the trauma until there is no further danger of it happening again.

Hi and welcome to the community.

I'm really sorry to hear that your daughter is going through this.

You've probably already come across and/or followed much of this advice, but these NAS articles also include links to further, more specialised resources:

NAS - Dealing with bullying - a guide for parents and carers

NAS - Resolving differences (re schooling, including in respect of bullying).

Yes, I agree, and I think he is.

Thanks for your reply, i appreciate your time! I have been toe to toe with school - and  I didn’t want to document anything too official on here in terms of police. School were not allowing this child in the same area as my daughter. His breaks were taken off him, a member of staff has to be outside with her.  I wanted to move my daughter school because while the school we’re intervening, I told the school it was not enough and why weren’t they expelling him? She finishes school in June, then she goes to high school. She wanted to move school for the last 4 months, I looked at the option but no school could take her. Hence I started a reduced time table - very frustrating that it was my only option to protect her. 

By no means as parents are we allowing her to feel that this is her fault. To be clear, she was on the autistic pathway before the incident happened, and we talked to her about it before the incident too. We aren’t suggesting my daughter has autism because of how she reacted to the attack. 
I completely understand why she is angry. We are absolutely devastated as parents that she is a victim of such abuse, it is not tolerated at all. 

Thankyou again for your response. 

What is being done about the bullying?

Ripping her hair out, throwing her in a bin, and kneeing her in the chest is assault, and if they were adults, we'd be encouraging your daughter/yourself to make a criminal complaint to the police. We tend to tolerate this kind of behaviour in children more as they can learn and grow out of it, but it still needs to be dealt with.

I cannot comment on whether she has autism or not - she will need a professional diagnosis - but being a victim of such assaults is itself not a symptom of autism, and would likely ruin anyone's mental health. It is not surprising that she is angry at home. If she doesn't like the idea of autism, then giving her a mental health "label" may serve to just reinforce that the bullying is somehow her fault.

I'd say the bullying needs to be sorted before dealing with any autism issues.

Well it's clear to me that the BOY needs a MH intervention...