AUTISM Tip: How To Respond To Bullying.
Michael Clark • June 22, 2023
This is such a vital skill-set for children with autism and we deal with it a lot!
Let me give you the key points of what we teach kids so you can begin an ongoing conversation with your child at home.
- Teasing/bullying happens to achieve a social goal for the benefit of the bully.
- There are at least 8 different motivations for bullies - They are not picking on you because there is something wrong with you.
- The goal of the person being targeted should be to avoid giving the bully the response they are looking for. (That’s because this reduces the chances that we will become targets again in the future).
- There are plenty of preventative strategies our children can learn, such as deliberately choosing to stay with groups/friends rather than allowing ourselves to be isolated.
- Your child can also be taught what steps to take such as how to use a confident face and a confident voice and how to calmly walk away from a confrontation before it escalates.
PARENTS: YOUR NEXT STEP
You can begin to teach your child new skills for handling bullying. You can help your child at home by watching Youtube videos or TV shows where kids are encountering low-level teasing or bullying.
- Examine the strategies that characters used to respond to teasing/bullying.
- If the goal is to withdraw calmly from a teasing/ bullying situation, did the characters succeed at that?
- What are some other, better strategies the characters could have used?
Always remember that if you are taking a moment to read this, then clearly, you are a proactive parent and your child is lucky to have you. 😊
Michael Clark (Course leader for children & teens with Autism)
[NOTE: This is not original content - it’s taken straight from our social skills courses for children with Autism. www.amazingskills.com.au]
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