I am just curious on ow everyone handles it when the kids are mean to your SN child. We are currently dealing with this and I know I am handling it the best I can with him, but I am always open to new ideas. DS does not understand that everyone is not nice and gets really upset. Besides wanting to smack the parents, do you say anything to them or the offending kids.

It depends. If I know the parent, even if it's not well, I will go to them directly. If it's at school, I go through the school, especially if dealing with the parent didn't work for whatever reason (believe it or not, it's not always the parent's fault), because whatever the cause, the school has a responsibility to protect my child. I've also gone directly to the child, but you have to be very, very careful how you do that. It depends on the age, like in my case, the child was still in elementary school, and it wouldn't have been right for me to come down hard, so I just talked to them nicely. It did make a difference.

We had a couple of incidents this past year, and I went to both the parent and the teacher, letting each know what I did, but went to the teacher on repeats. Both worked well.

There was also an incident on the bus, so I wrote a nice note to the driver, making him aware, asking him to watch out for the situation, and the kid was moved to an inner seat.

So...it's not a pat answer. I try to react the way I would want someone to react if my child was misbehaving. It's my job to discipline my kid. But if I don't, I wouldn't be surprised if someone went directly to him. However, I try to do my job. In my case, DS is never intentionally mean, but can come across as rude. It's my job to counsel him. I wouldn't like it if another adult intervened without bringing it to my attention. But if he persisted, I honestly wouldn't blame the other parent - in fact, sometimes a stranger can get through better. If the parent is an imbecile, I will indeed talk to the kid directly.

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Remember that scene from "Hand that Rocks the Cradle," where Rebecca DeMornay approaches the kid on the playground who's been picking on the little girl?

I did basically just that this spring, minus the bad words.

My DS' disability is obvious once he stands up and kids ask a lot of questions, or imitate him to be funny/mean. Not all kids, a few. This one kid was bugging him all the time, so I just went up to him and let him have it. Then I told the teacher what I did. The offender was separated from my son for a week.

Luckily, at this school most kids have been nice, but I have no problem teaching my son to defend himself with words, gestures; and Dh and I will go to bat for him if kids aren't nice. If their teachers and parents won't teach them, then we will.

I always went through the preschool. One kid was really picking on my ds but I didn't realize it until we went to his birthday party. My ds had always said this little kid was bad and didn't want to go. Well, we went and he was horrible to my ds. I ended up shadowing my son the rest of the party and talking to the teacher that night. She told me not to talk to his parents because they were aware that their son was aggressive and the conversation would not go well. They took care of it for awhile. But this spring he kept pushing my ds on the soccer field. My husband taught him how to keep his body out and push back if needed. That helped. Then 2 months ago we went to a bday party of a fellow classmate. This boy was trying to push my ds in the bottom crevice of the bounce house and my ds pushed back. We finally told him to tell this boy no and get help but if he didn't stop my son was allowed to push back hard once. He did this and the other kid bit him on the arm. Luckily it was through clothing but you could still count every tooth mark. The mom called me that night to apologize and figure things out. I (after conferring with some teachers) told her it was obvious that were problems between our children and that they always need to be surpervised when together regardless where they are. I did also meet with their teacher and principal to explain what had happened. The mom has kept her word and watches her son like a hawk whenever they see us.
But, my ds problems are not obvious at all until you really start watching him closely. His are social.

Good luck.
Sue

OMG, that is me, only i get so pissed off i want to use the bad words too!!!
I struggle with this myself, i cannot help it, it's the Momma Bear in me. It brings back memories of being picked on as a kid and you just can't help but want to butt in and tell these kids off ( i think it's that inner child in you that has grown up and is able to defend yourself and it's payback time).
I remember a time when the ring leader of a big circle of snotty little 5th graders staring down my dd and whispering about her while we were walking into her chorus concert ticked me off so bad, that i waited until dd was inside the chorus room and out of ear shot, i stared down that little snot and said to the whole group " shake your head, your eyes are stuck!". Then when i walked into the chorus room to check on dd and came back out they were GONE!! I admitted it to the teacher later, feeling a bit ashamed but she actually laughed and said that girl deserved it.
DD is getting better at handling it, but she still gets upset sometimes, she's a sensitive kid.

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