Changing room bullying or just ‘guy banter’?

[NCWorriet]

My son is now in year 8 and has level 1 autism which means he does struggle with rowdy atmospheres, particularly with kids his own age. He has never liked PE since starting secondary school because how aggressive boys can be when there isn’t a teacher there. He came to me upset on Friday saying there is a group of boys in particular that have started to ‘prank’ boys that are also getting changed by pulling there undies down to laugh at them. He told me that they were trying it on him and he just tried to laugh along with them to get through it. But he’s upset by the whole ordeal and now is insecure about his privates, saying he got made fun of.

This to me feels like something I should go to the school about as it’s a very serious issue, but I don’t know where to start. It’s not fair that some boys like mine, are now scared of doing PE. I spoke to a male family member and he just brushed it off as innocent jokes, but to me it’s serious, am I being over the top?

Furthermore, how do I address my sons insecurity? He has been lamenting that a lot of boys are taller than him, and now with this he’s becoming insecure about his privates which breaks my heart

You absolutely have to report this to the school, the school need to know and need to act.

Can he sit down while he's getting changed? This should prevent the other boys doing this. Tell the school what's happening as well, of course, but I think sitting down might work well as a deterrent to the other boys, they won't be able to pull anything down if he's sitting.

Thank you I didn’t think of this before, In the meantime I’ll ask him about it

It's bullying, it's done to make individuals the figures of ridicule.
Nasty little sods.

Just agreeing with others - this is completely unacceptable, it isn't just banter, and it does need to be reported to the school. They ought to come down hard on bullying like this and their anti-bullying policy should state what they'll do about it. It sounds like these boys are doing this to more than one person, so it should be possible for the school to handle this without your son being identified. Good luck - this must be very upsetting for your son.

Thank you all for your insight, I will be bringing it up to the school this week.

My son still doesn’t feel too good, it has turned PE from one of his favourites to something that he now worries about