aot of bullying is probably just harmless teasing, aspie children can be tsaouht to accept teasing and to tease back in retuen

my daughter is in public school and recently diagnosed with aspergers there is alot of bulllying going on.. This year they started a anti bullying program where they dont have Mandatory Reporting but they encourage all kids to report problmes, and actually alot of kids have stepped up to the plate. i am nut suer how they could enforce mandatory reporting and suspend for some stuff. i think imposing to many rules on kids causes them more harm than good sometimes especially when it involves them, as a victim of bullying when i was in school i see how it goes. i know that if i saw someone being bullyed and i myself was a victim i would not want to "tattle" on a bully and become his next victim. thats how alot of kids see it

Thank you all for your replies. I am seriously considering everything you have all said. And I failed to mention that the reporting is done with confidentiality so that the bully does not know who reported them.
Yes, this is an extreme solution, but it seems to be the one that works the best. Still I am considering what katdancer is saying about encouraging kids to report it but not making it mandatory. I guess I just feel really desparate about my son returning to school thursday as he was already in tears about it and said that his summer break wasn't long enough. And it doesn't help that I have severe depression and overreact to to pretty much everything. And I'm very interested in what harry3333 is saying about changing the way my son reacts to the teasing. Can you give me some ideas about how to teach my son how to react differently? Most of what he deals with is actually teasing, not bullying. And for katdancer I got my information from a book entitled "It's so much work to be your friend: Helping the child with Learning Disabilities Find Social Success" by Richard Lavoie.

My sons went through public schools in California and Florida. In Florida, there was a 'zero tolerance policy' supposedly for violence and harrassment, but that was only on paper. The schools, especially the middle schools, do nothing about it. Both of my kids were beaten up and still nothing done. I had to go over the principal's head in one instance to the school board to get anything done, and then my son was treated like he was the problem. That was after getting beat up by 6 guys he didn't even know in the locker room.

My advice is this: Do not settle for what the school tells you is okay or to ignore it. If your child is attacked, and the school does not act, call the police and report it. If it happened on the street instead of the playground or campus, you wouldn't hesitate to have the culprits arrested, so why make the distinction? I also advise you to line up your legal advocates because you will likely have to challenge the schools to get them to do anything.

We expect a lot from the schools, and they don't deliver. Period. Even when they are legally bound to do so.

The Christian schools are no better, and they can be worse environments because they are not legally bound like the public schools. Your only recourse there is to pull the kids out and stop paying tuition. My kids were perenially harrassed by those good Christian kids who thought nothing of attacking them and then going on to Bible study. There's a special place in hell for people like that... or at least I hope so...

Sorry - delicate subject...

Thank you cliffskat for your feedback. I'm seriously considering what you are saying. Most of what my son has dealt with so far at his private school would probably be labeled as "teasing" and not really as "bullying" although to my son it is just as bad, which is what concerns me. Last year he had one threat from a child who said he was going to beat my son up although my son didn't tell me about this until two weeks later. But if he were ever actually physically attacked I would not hesitate to take action and call the police. The thing is I don't want to have to wait until that happens before I do something about it. Last year I kept telling the teacher thinking that she would handle it but (surprise! surprise!) she never really did deal with it. School starts in two days and my son is really dreading it.

We had language written into my younger son's IEP every year that they would work with him on handling the teasing kinds of harrassment. He did get better with it, but it meant the school did even less to stop it. At one end of year IEP review conference, they told me he had punched somebody out - one of the kids that had been mercilessly teasing him for years. I was shocked and asked why they hadn't called me or my husband - I thought we were trying to teach him not to respond physically. The response I got was that the other kid "had it coming" and "deserved it"! WTF?!

You can have teasing response strategies written into the IEP. I recommend you do that.

Also be aware of cyber-bullying. My autistic son was the victim of a form of that as well. His guidance counselor did a check on facebook and myspace for kids from her school. Oh my! You would not believe the stuff the kids will put up these days. Be very careful about online harrassment. If your kids are like mine, they live half their life online and cyber-bullying and such is rampant.

The other piece of advice I wanted to give you is this: As far as the IEP goes, find out how it is to be distributed to your child's teachers. We found out that half our son's teachers knew he had an IEP but they had never seen it - and they were supposed to be part of the team accomplishing the goals of the IEP! Either insist that every teacher have a copy of the IEP, or make one yourself and give it to each teacher and introduce yourself to the teacher and let them know they can always contact you if there is any issue. We went to every open house as a family - not just one of us, all 4 of us - so the teachers would all recognize that we were people and were involved with our sons' educations. If you are a name without a face to them, they won't care and they won't help you. It also helped them understand the family dynamics when they met the brother, too. At least that's what we found. And both my husband and I went to all the IEP conferences as long as he was alive (he died while my younger son was in high school).

Hope this helps. Hugs....

Thanks everyone for your input. Yes the IEP is yet another issue of frustration. But I very much appreciate your suggestions, cliffskat, and will definately be making sure that all of his teachers have a copy of it and that they understand the plan. As outrageous as these bullying issues are, I'm not surprised by what I'm hearing. Back when Josh was in public school and I was talking on the phone to the principal about a bullying issue she actually said to me that if my son hit the kid who has been bullying him, could she look the other way. I think she meant it jokingly, but this is not a matter to be joking about.

I just wanted to add that we're two days in to the school year and have already had to deal wtith a kid from last year who bullied and teased Josh a lot. I asked Josh if he told the teacher and he said he did but that the teacher didn't really do anything. I snet an e-mail to that teacher telling him the situation and he separated them today. Also we ran in to the same kid and his family while we were out dong errends after school and I tried briefly to talk to the mom but she just blew me off saying that they tease each other back and forth. This really bugs me because this is the secomd time someone has said that Josh is part of the teasing when he isn't. Last year a friend of one of the teasers came up to Josh and me and said that they didn't get along (implying that Josh was part of it).
I think that this is part of what perpetuates the teasing and bullying, when people blame the victim or at least think that the vicitm is NOT a victim. And I admit that Josh is sensitive and it may seem to some like he overreacts somewhat, but I don't think it should matter. And I think that can be an excuse for not doing anything about it. Anyway, thanks for listening. I appreciate all of you!