Why are kids so cruel?

[MedusaIsHavingABadHairDay]

Ds2 is 15.. ASD moderate learning diffs, hypotonia ..and the loveliest person I know. He is a gentle giant.. 6 ft of innocent child who lives in a happy world of his obsession. He likes everyone, is ALWAYS a good boy and has no understanding of how people are.

I have recently started letting him go out by himself.. a massive step as he is less streetwise than your average 5 year old.. he has learned to use the bus to go to his SN club on a saturday where he then has lunch with his friend (also learning disabled) They are both gentle sweet boys.

Through his club, and because he has a split placement between his special school and a mainstream 'unit' he also mixes with mainstream. He thinks everyone is his friend and proudly tells me this. He talks to mainstream kids on facebook.
I was reluctant to let him on facebook, but at the same time wanted him to have the normal teen experience...

Anyway fast forward to this weekend and a girl told him she wanted to go out with him. He was so excited.. (he wants a girlfriend and to be married and drive a purple car!) She asked him to meet her on saturday at his usual lunch spot and he was so proud.

Of course it was a joke.. set up by another girl..a 14 yr old who knows him from mainstream and decided it was the BIGGEST joke to string him along. She then told him he was a retard and that no one would want to go out with him ever.

He was just so bewildered.. he doesn't understand why anyone would say they wanted to meet him then not.

Right now I want to get hold of that girl..and give her a talking to she wouldn't forget. WHY do kids do this? He is so gentle and sweet , handsome and kind and he is as vulnerable as a toddler because he believes everything he is told.

When he was small..didn't walk til he was 2.5, didn't talk til he was 5, it never occurred to me that the worries wouldn't lessen..that they would be different and harder to fix. But this HURTS. My beautiful, gentle lovely son doesn't deserve to be mocked for being who he is:(:(

So sorry for you and for him. My boy has this ahead too. We watch a lot of high school TV progs so he can see it's not just him. Hope you're ok and can remember, as I try to, that someone will one day show the love he deserves. Oh, and slap the little cow (only half joking).

I have just read your post and its brought me to tears :(

What a heartless and callous thing to do.

Sadly 14 yr old girls are not the best age for being kind as their hormones, demands for independence, stubborness and nastyness is rife. DD had a terrible time at that age.

Your son did not deserve this. I can only hope that this girl learns what it feels like to be picked up and dropped. Nasty....just nasty :(

I want to get hold of that girl and slap her for real !!!!
OP I am in tears for you .....hormones my arse ..I had hormones at that age but i would never be that cruel to anyone

oh your poor lovely boy

still crying ...you are a lovely mummy!!..If you do find her give her a real good put down and an extra one from ME !!

You sound like a wonderful mum.

((((())))) Kids are cruel. You need to sort out his fb page asap. You need to to know his password and set up his email so that when there's a notification that he has got a private message that it comes to your email account. If you know roughly what time he goes on his fb page, you have his fb page up on your lappy/computer so that you can monitor it.

If you have to, log in as him and put a message saying this is x's mum logging in to his account. Any name calling or bulling of any kind will not be tolerated and any nastiness will be logged for future evidence etc. As well as kicking the bullies of his fb page and blocking them.

Extreme i know but both my girls have been bullied via fb.
You also needs to make sure that your son understands not to make silly comments on friends walls.

For example "yetssterday i burped in the car for 2mins i felt like it was my breky lunch ad my spaghetti came out it was ssooo funny¬!!?"

which is what my daughter did and some nasty little $%£$$£ that go to the same special school as her replied with these comments:

"Gross"
'HAHA innit gemma! thats disgusting'
"Very"
'Oh well shes only little:) so shes going to write something gross like that:L:)Black heart (cards)' (shes only 5 months older then my dd)
"Suppose so"
'Haha ;) Black heart (cards)'
"Lol;)Black heart (cards)"

Thanks Collette...I didn't know you could do that!

I have access to everything (he is not capable of setting up a facebook account himself) but I didn't know I could direct messages so that I could check it out first.
Obviously I can see what he is doing on there at home but I'm not always in the same room..and it hadn't occurred to be to be so as I KNOW he would never go on a bad site or write anything offensive because he just isn't there developmentally.. to be honest I'm more nervous that he will write about Father Xmas or something (he still believes) and get teased.

I have spent a lot of time talking to him about not adding people, not replying to every status as he doesn't understand ..he isn't allowed to add anyone as a friend until he has checked with me..but that doesn't stop messages coming and of course sometimes kids slip thro my net!

I'll have a look tonight, thanks:)

His brother and sister have been cheering him up this morning in a very childish manner.. 'you are WAY too gorgeous for her anyway..etc' which made him happy:) Privately his sister..at the same school as this girl but 6th form, has said she is going to investigate and find out who it is and have a little word. Said sister is 5 ft nothing but has a wit that Stephen Fry would envy... the girl is DOOMED :D

Oh god.... I'm not letting DS2 out of the house... ever.... I am not looking forward to this type of thing.

Learn as much as you can yourself about FB and how it works. You need to control his FB page; ensure the privacy and security settings on his page are sky high too.

Even though this happened outside of school, the unit in question should take this seriously. I would be talking to the school and informing them of what happened. They'll be able to find the girl in question.

That's awful Medusa, but you know it is also real life. At 15, he has you there to help him process the experience and make sense of it. Better to have these experiences now whilst you can help him develop coping strategies than later.

I'm really sorry though. Your poor lovely DS.

Hello, I have no experience of this as a parent but I wanted to tell you something I did at school. I haven't nc'd even though I am ashamed of this. I asked a boy out who I knew had a crush on me, he was not good looking and I did it as a joke. What a horrible, horrible thing to do!

I did this because I was very unhappy after being teased at school and for a short time I felt better making sure everyone was looking at someone else and not teasing me. I can offer no better reason than that. But I came round and worked out I was being a bitch and I apologised to the boy a couple of years later.

I am so sorry this happened to your son. But young people can be awful, sometimes unknowingly, through stupidity, for a laugh and because they feel bad themselves. Unfortunately it is real life.

Hope both you and your son bounce back quickly x

Evil little cow! at 14 she really should know better.
Not all teenagers are like that & i'm sure if his other friends knew all about it she would be ashamed of her actions.
Sure there is going to be a small group that egged her on but honestly... evil, evil cow.
I hope she develops horrible horrible Acne.

oh yes, an enormouse hairy arse... & halitosis. :)

Oh what a bitch :(

I'm already seeing the beginnings of this with my two. One of the kids in the street scooted past me imitating how DS2 babbles, yesterday. It took all my restraint not to throw a stick under the little shit's wheels.

I know just how you feel, i have a 13yr old ( nearly 14) with ODD and CD, he can be a good lad when left but some of the lads on our estate have figured out just how to push DS buttons for a reaction out of him ( god help them and they have been warned if he ever really looses it with them) and then after they manage to coax him out of the house they wind him up and taunt him, he says but there my mates, weve tried and tried to explain that no sort of mate would do that. and then when he gets hurt or upset over it all, i end up with months of him refusing to leave the house.

What an unpleasant, nasty girl.

I think we all (and by 'we' I mean every person in the world!) need to have a zero-tolerance attitude towards that sort of behaviour.

If every person - adult or child - who spoke in such an unpleasant manner was immediately pulled up on it by everyone around them, then it would go a long way towards making society a more pleasant place to be.

I agree with perception IMO what the girl did counts as a hate crime. If she had told a black child that 'no one would ever want to go out with you because you are a n***' then that would clearly be a hatecrime, and to me it seems to be exactly the same thing.

oh Medusa - how awful. your poor DS :(

agree with perception - I would report her to police and also contact school. she is 14 after all.

Sorry, I didn't see the fact she had called him a 'r***'. This does make it seem much more targeted on him. I think my lack of knowledge of this area probably makes my post a bit irrelevant - sorry. I posted because I wanted to make the point that kids can be cruel, without really understanding how their actions affect the other person. I guess it is a judgment call whether the police, school or just time is the best way to teach someone to be nicer.

Oh, God. I'm so very sorry for your son and for you.

I have an 11yr old whois exactly the same. You may have seen my post about him wanting to walk to school and other kids mimicking him and taking the piss. I've reported them, the boys, to the head. They are "dealing" with it.

People are cruel. That's it really.

Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle et al make it ok to have a laugh at disabled kid's expense.

I'd report this girl to the head. It's despicable and she should be shown up for the mindless little cow she is.

LOL thank you for making me smile ... I shall now envision her with all of the above attractive features

I'm not sure how to track her down exactly..DS2 doesn't know her second name, so I shall have to do some hunting her down along with his sister..and then I shall report her. I do have to tread a fine line sadly because I am quite sure that a girl who is willing to be so rotten to a disabled boy, would be quite capable of making his life worse but under the radar as it were, if we are not careful, and I do not want to make it worse for him.

I have to say that in all the time he has been integrating (last two years..til then it was all special school) the VAST majority of teens have been kind and friendly and very tolerant towards him, which thankfully has allowed him to flourish. I will NOT let him be affected by this, and I AM gunning for her!! :D