Care & Feeding: Theresa the Bully

[minoanmiss]

My son will be in second grade next year. Our elementary school is small and there are only two classes for every grade level. In kindergarten, he had a classmate “Theresa,” who bullied him and also other kids. It was very hard to get help from teachers and the administration about this because Theresa is mildly autistic and is part of the special needs program. But name-calling, hitting, and making up mean stories have nothing to do with autism. For first grade, I was able to get a promise that my son and Theresa would be in separate classrooms. My son has thrived and made friends and did great this year. He still saw Theresa at lunch and recess, and she was still mean to him, but it sounds like he had friends around him to make it easier, and his first grade teacher intervened much more firmly than they did in kindergarten. Now that the school year is over, I made a request to keep them separated next year. The principal said she would not promise anything, and that enough time had passed that she didn’t see it as an issue. From parent gossip, I’ve learned that other parents have also tried to separate their kids from Theresa, which is probably why I’m getting pushback. I’m so frustrated. My son cried multiple times a week in kindergarten, and it took a lot of effort to bring him back from hating school last year to successfully making friends and enjoying activities this year. What do I do?

—Don’t Break What’s Working! <

Dear Don’t Break,

First: I’m not sure you’re the best judge of what does and does not “have to do” with autism. Second: I implore you to step back a bit and try to see the big picture. Multiple parents are begging the school to keep Theresa, a child, isolated from their children. Whatever the root causes of this child’s behavior, she is troubled and in pain. What is it you would have the principal do? Keep Theresa in a room of her own? Keep her only among children whose parents haven’t noticed that she’s struggling and lashing out?

I’m not suggesting I don’t understand your focus on keeping your child safe and happy. But when the issue is another child the same age—yes, even when that other child is “mean”—your wish for your child’s happiness shouldn’t come at the other child’s expense. That would be a cruelty much greater than Theresa’s. Unlike her, you’re a full-grown adult who should know better.

Besides: A second grader isn’t a kindergartener. Naturally, you should continue to be attentive to how he’s feeling as the new school year begins. But keep in mind that he will be much better equipped this coming year to handle Theresa’s behavior toward him (as he exhibited at lunch and recess in first grade) and that the second grade teacher will be better prepared—because there’s now two years’ worth of information—for possible problems that may require a teacher’s intervention. And it’s not so terrible for your child to learn strategies for dealing with people he finds difficult or even painful to be around (he will be having to do this his whole life, as we all do)—in fact, schooling at this age isn’t only about learning language arts and math and science (etc.) skills; it’s also about learning social and interpersonal skills of all kinds. And then there are the lessons you will be teaching him: about resilience, inclusion, empathy, and not running away from problems.

—Michelle

Comments

[minoanmiss]

I dunno. LW's complaint is not that Theresa is autistic, or even something she can't control like being allergic -- LW's complaint is about Theresa's actions, about [the school doing nothing to prevent] Theresa bullying her son. Not least because I have been a child deployed for the benefit of other children, I wouldn't exactly jump at the chance to let my child be a punching bag for another's benefit. (and as I mentioned in brackets, what is the school doing about Theresa's behavior?!)

[viggorlijah]

My kid was bullied and changed schools mostly due to that. At the next school a violent bullying kid was in her class but the school made serious efforts to safely include him and manage his behaviour so that the other kids felt safe speaking up when he was bullying them and knew what was just get along with weird behaviour versus unsafe behaviour. I was worried a lot at first but then my kid would talk about how the teachers and classmates handled him and she felt safer about both her own quirks as a neurodiverse kid being accepted and about the school being a safe place because this very difficult kid was still included as best as possible and the school showed actively that they were listening to kids. He also made significant progress over the next couple of years.

Abusive kids deserve school too. It’s a lot more work but the end result benefits all the kids.

[minoanmiss]

This is 1 excellent 2 should be SOP 3 rarer than hens teeth. Sigh.

[ambyr]

Yes, Michelle seems to be eliding the part where Theresa is hitting is son.

It's true that for our entire lives we have to deal with the risk that people might hit us, but the strategy I and most adults practice for dealing with this is to do everything we can to avoid people who've assaulted us in the past. Not wanting to be in a classroom with someone who hits you isn't "running away from problems."

[cereta]

It does bother me that we routinely expect children to deal with behavior, verbal and physical, that if perpetrated by an adult on another adult, would result in everything from at best disciplinary action to at worst to being criminally prosecuted. Note: I am definitely not calling for intervention by the police or the juvenile justice system, both of which are highly likely to make the situation worse. But I've seen, and personally experienced, adults putting the onus on the kids to "work out" one child hitting another, verbally abusing another, or outright harassing the other. And unlike adults, kids don't have the only real weapon we have against regular abusive behavior: leaving, whether that means leaving the room or even leaving the home/workplace. All of which is to echo: what is the school doing about Theresa's behavior?

[green_grrl]

Not much, if things were still the same at recess and lunch. Is Theresa not getting any special behavioral education as part of her autism diagnosis?

[cimorene]

Yeah, this is the responsibility of the school, to figure out how to handle it. I know managing and restraining bullying is notoriously hard and there's no magic solution, but just saying you hope it won't be a problem isn't going to cut it. Giving it another chance is fair after a year, but I don't like the tone here that the parent is being blamed for valid and reasonable concerns.