Bullies and Kids With Special Needs

I remember being bullied as a child.  I used to think that I "gave" them plenty of reasons to do it.  I had braces and back in the 80s, they weren't cool like they are today.  I was called, train tracks, metal mouth, people made choo choo noises when I came in the room.  Before that, I had buck teeth.  REALLY buck teeth.  People left carrots on my desk, OK?  Yes, they were accompanied by the "Hey, what's up Doc?" from the Bugs Bunny cartoons.  Then, I was really thin (and this was a curse?  I want to be cursed again!!!!) and they used to call me a Carpenter's Dream...flat as a board and thin as a nail.  The only good thing about being this tiny was being able to outrun anyone who was thinking about kicking my tail.

Then, I grew up and had kids of my own.  My oldest daughter had the same buck teeth that I did, except I think they may have been a little bit worse.  She was nothing short of tortured.  Sure, she has beautiful teeth now, but back then it was awful.  It's so hard to protect your children in these situations.  You don't want them to be called a baby for mommy coming in to protect them, but at the same time, telling them to try to ignore them or to not let it get to you isn't very helpful either.  What is a parent to do?  I can remember sitting in the principal's office when my now 22 year old daughter was in about her sophomore year.  Some bratty kid who had been threatening to beat her up forever made a go of it in the cafeteria.  Naturally, she had about 5 people with her and my daughter was alone.  M. was hit and put up a cafeteria tray to block the attack.  She defended herself as best she could and IIRC, at one point someone held her arms back so she couldn't.  She was suspended, according to their "Zero Tolerance" for violence.  What message does this send?  A gang of kids show up, restrain you, beat you and you put your hands up to defend yourself and YOU get in trouble?  We are sending a message to the bullies to go for it.  This girl was suspended for three days and when she came back, she threatened my daughter within the first five minutes.  Yeah, the three day vacation suspension worked!

Now I have two children with special needs.  Their personalities and social skills are very different from other kids around them.  They have a very hard time making and keeping friends and their peers and even their parents don't understand.  In fact, I can say that in some cases, the parents of these kids can be the toughest nuts to crack. Watching the news and seeing such heartbreaking stories of teens committing suicide because of bullying is unbearable.  Our children shouldn't want to die because of how others are treating them.  It shouldn't matter if it's because they are gay, overweight, have acne, whatever the reason these kids are being tortured, there has to be a way to turn this around.  I know that "kids will be kids" and it will never stop completely, but something needs to change.

I spent a good part of the day at a beautiful playground in my area today.  Schools were closed, so there were many children enjoying the beautiful day.  I had the pleasure of sitting next to a lovely young lady and she told me about a family member who was dealing with a severely autistic child.  It broke my heart to hear the same familiar issues, especially with the bullying that seems to be endured universally.  One word keeps popping up in my head when I think about this; education, education, education.  Sure, you hear lots on TV about Autism:  how prevalent it is, how many more boys have it than girls, how much research is being done.  However, do you really KNOW about autism?  Until we educated and inform people about what to expect, way too many people are going to continue thinking I'm a bad mother who can't control her child.