Bullying

I ran across this article, and it's disturbing me on so many levels. That poor child. He was 11. Eleven for Pete's sake! It breaks my heart, and it scares the hell out of me. 

He was bullied by being called gay. I don't know if he actually was gay, and it doesn't matter. What matters is that his mom and the school were aware of the problem, and it still continued. It continued to the point that a fifth grader killed himself. 

All of us with kids on the spectrum need to look out for this. Bullying is a huge problem for Autists, and it's ironically worse the more "high functioning" you are. I have a colleague with Asperger's who tells me he was beat up daily. Daily. He didn't understand why. Well, hell, I didn't understand why people picked on me, and I've got a bit of a leg up on understanding social behavior.