AIBU to think 'hit them back' is inappropriate to tell a 5 year old?

[TRecks]

DS5 is autistic; dragonised young by NHS. Some v clear social and communication challenges. Struggled in nursery hugely.

Primary school has been far better. But he is always been on the outside & struggled. He is far happier in the company of girls but he (and all the other boys) refuse to play with girls. He actually like some of the girls and they like him but he refuses to play with them if the boys are near.

To cut a long story short, in the last month - the group of confident, loud boys have started running away from him whenever he goes near them. They take things from him. But mostly they just run away and pretend they can't see him. They have never been violent as far as I know.

Just been at kids party and DS spent most of it in tears. He often pretends everything is fine but this time he just cried and cried that the boys laugh at him, run away from him and spent it in my lap buried into my jumper.

I then persuaded him to go and play again, and saw with my own eyes all the boys run away as soon as he approached. He cried again and we went home

DH is now saying to DS 'you hit them back kid'. He is saying 'the other dads will tell their sons the same' . Nobody is hitting anyone at the moment and now of course DS is saying to me 'do I hit boys?' and DH is saying 'no, only if they hit you' but he's 5 and autistic and is now v confused as he is saying 'i thought hitting was bad'. DH just lecturing me that I don't understand boy dynamics and he needs to 'not be a victim' and he needs to show them he is not 'the weakest link'

What are people's views? It seems totally inappropriate and unhelpful to me. But I get that my current advice of 'be kind', tell the teacher etc isn't working and the boys are being cruel and DS is becoming increasingly upset at goiing to school.

What are the school doing to address this bullying?

As an aside; no it’s not good advice at all but there is something to be said for teaching them to defend themselves. I remember as a child my brother was bullied for weeks and weeks. He was getting hit, not retaliating, school useless. Eventually my Mum had enough and said right, next time X hits you, you are allowed to hit back.

My brother thumped him only the once and lo and behold, the bullying stopped!

This is not advice I would give or how I parent but just saying this might be what your husband is getting at. Sometimes bullies need a firm response to back off.

It’s actually much harder to address this psychological cruelty and running away from him :(

Fighting back if you're being attacked is fine, both for children and adults.

Hitting someone because they don't want to play with you is a completely different scenario. Initiating physical violence is never acceptable.

Your DH needs to be clearer with his messaging.

Wrt to the playground problems, I would focus on getting to the bottom of why he won't play with the girls or the less confident/quiet boys. Building his confidence to the point where he can feel comfortable playing with everyone is the way forward. Is he getting messages of toxic masculinity from your DH? Is that why girls aren't acceptable playmates?

I think it is awful that the other parents watched their boys bullying another child at a party - if I had been at the party with my ds I would have called him over if I saw him excluding a dc by running away and he would have had short shrift.

You might be better posting on sen board op. Asd kids can have very set ideas of rules. When my husband in his wisdom told my asd dc to hit to defend himself. He took it as - lamp anyone who mildly irritated him. 😤
So doesn't always work with asd kids

DS spent all bedtime talking about pushing and hitting the "mean boys". DH said "well no you don't hit them just if theyre mean" and DS said "you told me to daddy"

DH is saying he's sorry now he said it and apparently now gets why it wss bad idea to a young child who takes everything v literally

God I hope he doesn't go into school tomorrow and start hitting them all!

Socially support playing football at lunch.

The bullies can go do gardening club, spend time in a small group away from others and learn to be kind.

That's terrible advice in the situation you have described. I'd be confused by it (and I'm a neurotypical adult).

I think 'hit back' can be good advice in some extremely limited circumstances.

Here, it makes no sense at all (there's no 'back'), will make him seem even less sympathetic to his peers, puts him at risk of being disciplined by the school, and totally confuses him about rules and about violence.

Absolute sad acts for reporting the phrase big girls blouse. What a site!

But no one is hitting the child here.

Deterrence is irrelevant, therefore. So is reputation-building (because if this kid starts hitting he is going to be even further ostracized and teased).

I couldn't agree more. And now DS has taken it as fact. He gets upset v quickly- kids not listening etc - honestly DH knows DS is autistic and knows he's 5 but then acts like he's talking to some bloke down the pub "you got to show them you won't take any shit".

Ds has taken it on board 100%. I'm genuinely worried for tomorrow

Your DH has been an idiot here. These boys are not being physical or aggressive with your son, they are being mean and running away. Teaching him to hit a child if the child is mean (as per your last update and the newest stupid shit to come out your husbands mouth) is only going to get your son into trouble.

Talk to DH this evening and make him understand why he can't say what he has said. Imagine a day comes where a couple of these lads run off and your son chases them and starts swinging?

There is a big difference between trying to teach a child to stick up for themselves and fight back IF they find themselves in a physical altercation and teaching your child they have the right to lay hands on someone if they are doing something they perceive to be mean.

Oh no! I'm sorry I don't have any useful advice.

My (unformed, probably not-at-all useful advice) might be, if you risk confusing him further by telling him that this isn't the rule, could you tell him that yes it is the rule but it's the rule for adults if you are trapped and can't run away (or whatever: basically, some set of circumstances that won't apply to him). Then he won't have the confusion of conflicting rules to handle.

I would also not be happy at all with the school for saying maybe he likes being alone, that is absolute bullshit and a cop out.

Most schools now have buddy systems and things in place to help children struggling with friendship issues, they need to do more for him. I'd be arranging to speak with the teacher to find out what they are going to to do help, try and understand more about what exactly he is struggling with with friendships, why these boys are behaving this way towards him etc.

They know the children better than anyone, there will be kids in the class/school he will no doubt get on better with, he just needs help finding them.

It’s wrong to encourage him to be violent. Perhaps it’s better to try to get the staff involved - it’s quite likely that they have strategies to deal with the other boys’ behaviour, which sounds to be bullying.

I think you should talk to the teacher again. They need to find out why the boys are running away.

If ds does or says something that upsets them then the teacher can put things in place to support his social skills and communication.

If the boys are being unkind then that also obviously should be dealt with.

I would also ask the teacher to encourage some friendships with the people who do enjoy interacting with him, and then encourage those friendships yourself too.

Would a social story help him to understand that friendships should be with kind people regardless of gender.

There is really a lot that can be done to encourage friendship. In lots of years of teaching I have never been unable to help a child to make at least one friendship.

Just to add - I have occasionally taught children who genuinely wanted to be alone. Those children politely refuse to interact when invited to play and tell the adults at school that they want to play alone or read. Parents seem to find that upsetting. But it doesn't seem to be the case for your son. I am really just addressing the fact that some pp think the teacher is wrong to suggest that he might like being alone - it does happen.

But no ones hit him... that's the point.

Your DH was being stupid. Even more so when your son has ASD, is only 5 AND wasn't being hit to begin with.

He sees that now, but it's too little too late.

On the friendship side, talk to the teacher again . Make it clear he does NOT want to be alone and would like to make some friends. Are there no other quieter boys in the class that have varied interests? Could you arrange some playdates with them?

What's the issue with the girls? Is it because the other boys will laugh at him/call him names if he plays with them? If yes, then bring that up with the school as well.

Does the school do anything to support the social side ? Like small groups of colouring/lego/board games etc.

They're 23 and 27 now. Popular, happy, working. They're good thanks.

Fair enough but please don’t tell people to do that.
The world has changed so much since even mine just adults were born.
We really need parents to start backing school and school rules. It is having a massive impact on education.

I teach mine that if someone hits you then you hit them back.

there’s a boy in my younger son’s class who can be very violent (they’re 8) and unpredictable. He’s hit a lot of the boys in the class including my son a few times who had a burst lip and a bruised cheek on separate occasions. Other kids have had similar. Strangely enough he’s never hit my son again since he clocked my DS in the face out of the blue in the playground my DS put him on his backside with a pretty explosive retaliation.

It's terrible advice, especially for an autistic child who may not always know what other people's intentions are.

If bullies know that they can provoke him into hitting them, it's extremely easy for them to make sure the teacher doesn't see the provocation but does see the reaction, with the end result that DS gets in trouble and the bully walks away with a mild bruise at worst.

Or, in the case of my nephew after SIL told him to do this, he couldn't tell the difference between on purpose and by accident, so within a few months he'd punched several children who accidentally jostled him in the line, one who stepped on his hand when walking across the carpet, and bitten his TA who knocked his hand whilst helping him with pencil grip.

I wasn't telling anyone to do anything. Just saying what I told my kids.

I’m at the opposite end of a similar situation at my youngest’s primary. There is a child with possible sen who hits, shouts at, and snatches things from him - he was told constantly to walk away / ignore him but I was told nothing. A few weeks ago my son had a few bad ‘falls’ - nose bleeds, scraped knees. School said he was running and banged into someone. DS told me that the boy kept pushed him and so he tried to run away as fast as he could. We’ve seen discovered this was going on since preschool and neither set of parents was informed and actually the other boy’s parents were about to make a bullying complaint against my son / other kids running away from him.

So if I were you I would demand a meeting with the teacher to discuss exactly what’s going on. There needs to be better supervision in the playground but don’t immediately assume your child is innocent because the teachers didn’t notice.