An autistic teenage boy in Australia had his fingers blown off in his backyard by a bomb his "friends" brought to his home. Then these same "friends" took off and left him there. I'm not totally clear on the details (such as how the heck this happened in the first place), but it just gives me cause to worry more.
Kyle is 3. This year, he'll be going to head start. While he is little, his "quirks" might entertain his classmates, possibly scare them from time to time, but shouldn't really bring any harm to him. Five, ten, fifteen years from now, is my child going to be the autistic kid on the news for something like this?
Bullying is such a huge problem in our schools here in the US. For kids with autism, it can be hard for them to distinguish between when someone is a real friend, and when someone is picking on them-they don't pick up on social cues the way their peers do. It's a belief held by many, and one that I share, that most bullying is motivated by fear-we fear what we don't understand, and we tend to attempt to destroy or otherwise harm what we can't understand.
This is why it is so important to please, PLEASE, teach your children, nieces, nephews, siblings, grandchildren, friends, whomever, about people like my son, like the teenager in Australia.
Tell your kids, or whatever children you have any influence over, whether you are their aunt, uncle, grandparent, teacher, whatever, that kids like mine are just like them. They just express themselves differently, and that's okay. It's what makes our world such a beautiful place-we all get to be different.
Tell them if they see their peer spinning, flapping their hands, rocking, or doing some other odd thing, it's okay. They're just calming themselves, or expressing their feelings, or any other number of things they may not be able to verbally express.
Tell them it's okay to have questions about their peers who are different; it's better to ask their questions than to bully the poor child.
Tell them that these kids don't always understand the same things they themselves do. Tell them how to help their classmate or whoever it happens to be understand the situation. Teach them discretion, too-our kids might not be able to express it as well, but they do have feelings, and they don't want to be called out for being "weird" anymore than any other child does.
Tell your kids that yes, that kid is different, and no, you don't understand them, and you probably never fully will. You can try, though-these kids live so much in their own worlds, and it's such a beautiful place, if you can just find a way into it.
Music is my little boy's world, and this is the closest I will ever get to seeing it. Wouldn't it be great if you could help your child see such beauty in children like mine?
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