Perfect Targets: Asperger Syndrome and Bullying by Rebekah Heinrichs Overall:

Book / Video
Address: Autism Asperger Publishing Co., 2003
City: Shawnee Mission, KS
Added by: EmbroideryFan
Rating: 4-5 stars

Post: This book is a complete resource for persons with AS being bullied.

Sections describe in detail bullying, with characteristics of the bully, the targeted children, children with AS, and the bystanders.

Solutions are offered regarding: Increasing awareness and understanding, plus Taking a stand at the school level, at the class level, and at the individual child level.

MANY varied resources are included, as well as an Appendix, with forms children can fill out to analyze bullying situations.

This is an excellent, practical book for parents, teachers, older students, and school administrators!

I added a post below that, noting that bullying was not just for children because it is alive and well in the adult workplace, most unfortunately, and Aspies of all people walk right into the Social "guillitine" without warning because of who we are.

Teasing is just bullying gift wrapped. Maybe that's too absolute but I don't believe in good natured teasing at least haven't seen any yet.

teasing is very different from bullying but our aspergers stops us from seeing the difference between the 2

They often do look the same except the difference is in the intent. Teasing is supposedly joking but bullying is meant to be harmful.

Problem being that you don't always know someone's intent when they do it.

I'm not trying to be oppositional but could you explain an okay kind of teasing. Teasing I'm familiar with involves if not an overt then an undercurrent of making fun of someone.

an ok kind of teasing.

So when I was a child, the teasing went as follows:
"happy birthday to you, you smell like a zoo, you look like (insert smelly kid's name) and you smell like him too."

As an adult, teasing can come in many forms, both, the aforementioned mean one, and a type of teasing such as when someone is flirting with ya and sillily takes a piece of packing styrofoam and rubs it on your head making your hair stand on end. That's unharming, playful teasing. It makes everybody giggle, but there is absolutely no mean spiritedness to it.

so, there could be a difference, but when dealing with kids, mostly not.

Or an okay kind of kid teasing for older kids can be when one friend finds out that their buddy has a crush on someone and sings (example) "Tommy and Susie sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g."

Thanks for the examples, they help.

I have this same problem with my son...his 'teasing' gets dangerously close to physical bullying most of the time but is hard to stay upset with him because he doesn't understand why as he puts it "everyone else can tease so why can't I?" I haven't figured out a good way to explain this so he'll understand yet...at 6'1" and 298 lbs, his teasing gets scary to people and yet he cries because he doesn't get it.

Yeah, some people do enjoy that, but other people don't. I have AS and I have also been a subject of teasing and bullying. Some of the names I was called were "Fatty", "Tub of Lard", "Jordan the Cow", "Blue Whale", etc. But as I got older, I got over it. It doesn't affect me as much as it did then.

Teasing and bullying too often hurt those of us who have AS when we were children.

The news feed on my Web provider start page that's keyed to "Asperger' has a story about a new novel with a main character who's undiagnosed with AS. She starts off by being bullied and then as a grownup she ends up in an abusive relationship.

She got into the relationship because she couldn't "read" beneath the guy's exterior but the childhood bullying conditioned her and it's a factor in why she stays.

Anyway, this is just my opinion but I think that "good-natured" teasing is a minefield waiting to happen if we attempt it and guess wrongly about a choice of subject and it turns out to be "off-limits."

I had to watch a manager training video for my job and it showed how people could get caught up in back-and-forth insulting banter about each other and suddenly one person crossed an invisible line and the other person was abruptly offended.

There seemed to be no reason why one of the participants would suddenly take offense when he'd been happily slinging and taking insults up until that point and I think the point of the video was that the entire conversation should never have happened in the first place.

I know that real life isn't as simple as an HR video, but I think there are far safer ways to build social bonding.

Best to reserve "good-natured" teasing for people with whom a strong bond already exists. If teasing seems to be an expected part of that relationship, I am hoping that by then you know these people so well that you are also fully aware of which topics are off limits.

the perception of the persong being teased or bullied is the only thing that counts. It does not matter the intent, its the end result that stays with us. My 9 yr old son was teased at the bus stop to the point that he would not go out in the mornings then we stopped having him rid it all together. I made other arrangemetns to get him to school. He simply could not take the torment any longer. They may have not always been laughing at him, but that was his perception after being teased by them. It breaks my heart!

Great post cparkhill!

Its quite possible, "we" have a lower tolerance for confusing things simply because we do not understand them. Teasing may be one of those things that is just intolerable by an autistic/aspergers because we just don't understand.
before it ever reaches all-out bullying, we've had it, our defenses are raw.