Son with HSP being bullied and attacked all the time

[Shesasuperfreak]

My son has hereditary spastic paraplegia, which effects how he walks.

He has just been out to play football with his brother and came back crying. He is a big 13 year old and this is the second thing that's happened this week.

On Sunday he was attacked and his shirt ripped and punched when he let in a goal. Then today we went to a totally different area and when he tackled someone for the ball they started calling him spastic.

He is in bits, I dont know what to do.
I'm scared for his mental health.

This is just the stuff that has happened this week. In school there is always something going on aswell. With PE and after school clubs.

I dont know how to help him.

He has it on the mild side so he has physiotherapy but we are not entitled to any extra activities or help.

He is so sweet and kind and I can see his spirit getting crushed.

I'm so sorry, I don't have much to offer however I saw this on page 3 and wanted to bump it for you.
Have you reported the attack to the police? What support have the school given you? If this is also happening on their watch, they need to be doing something about it.
Your poor boy

That's so awful, your poor boy being treated this way :(

I'd insist the school come down hard on all bullying and - bit out there - but is there a sportsperson he admires? I'd reach out to them and see if theyd send him a video message.

Sending hugs OP

Horrible horrible nasty disablist pieces of work. I fuckin despise bullies.
If it were my child I'd be calling this a hate crime.

I would report to the police every time

The school have put some mental health time out to talk with someone, twice a week.

And every time something happens I email the school and have meetings. They tell me what they have done, until the next time it happens.

Outside of school is harder. He wants to be able to play outside but since the fight on Sunday I'm not letting him anymore. I tried to find out where the boy lived so I could talk to his parents but all of the other children there said they didn't know. And I walked up and down the neighbourhood for about 30min thinking that a parent might have come out as their child was also in a fight but they didn't.

Yesterday with the other incident, I just spoke to him about people being jealous that you got the ball off off them so they try to take a cheap shot and say things.

Its hard. He just feels like life is unfair and why him.

Everytime he feels a bit better and more confident someone says something or physically does something and we are back to square one.

The first week of year 7 he was rushed by 2 children in the playground. The school had cctv. I phoned the police at the time but ended up dropping it as my son just wanted to move on from it. It is in the police records though and they did contact the school.

Oh I'm so sorry for him.

I'd report it to the police as a hate crime.

My ds has HSP (he's also autistic) and suffered bullying in school but not to this level and always rather about his autism than his HSP.

Can he join a sports club? Have a look at CP sport as they include HSP. Look at other clubs near by that offer disability teams as well.

My ds started swimming at 12 with a local club and it's been the making of his MH. He's swam for years now and was classified as a para swimmer about 18 months ago and is has just come back from a swim camp with British swimming!

Also look on FB as there's a support group for parents of children with HSP UK. As it's quite rare it's nice to have somewhere you can bc hat with parents who understand.