Bullying: autistic children and teenagers

What is bullying?

Bullying is when someone deliberately and repeatedly upsets, frightens, threatens or hurts someone else or their property, reputation or friendships.

Bullying can be:

teasing, saying mean things, threatening someone or calling someone names
deliberately ignoring someone or leaving them out of games or activities, or encouraging others to do this
playing nasty jokes or spreading rumours or nasty stories
pushing, tripping or hitting someone
taking or damaging someone’s things or asking for money.

Bullying can happen face to face in preschools, schools, sports clubs, other extracurricular groups and workplaces.

Bullying can also happen online. Cyberbullying is when someone uses digital technology to send nasty texts, say mean things about others, or deliberately harass or humiliate someone.

All bullying is hurtful. When it keeps going, it can cause long-lasting harm.

Bullying is never OK.

How bullying affects autistic children and teenagers

Autistic children and teenagers are particularly vulnerable to bullying.

Bullying can harm autistic children and teenagers in many ways:

Self-esteem – they might feel bad about who they are and lose confidence.
Mental health – they might worry, feel stressed or begin to feel sad or depressed.
Social skills – they might withdraw from others or avoid social settings.
School progress – they might refuse to go to school or get distracted from their work.

If your autistic child is being bullied, they need guidance, love and support, both at home and at school. Your child also needs to know that you’ll work with the school to prevent more bullying.

Signs that autistic children and teenagers are being bullied

Spotting bullying can be hard. Autistic children and teenagers might find it hard to communicate their experiences using language or to talk about their feelings and friendships.

Also, autistic children and teenagers might not always realise when they’re being bullied, particularly with more subtle bullying. And sometimes autistic children and teenagers might misunderstand others and think someone is bullying them when the person is just trying to talk or play with them.

There’s no single way to tell whether your autistic child is being bullied. The way your child might react depends on how bad the bullying is, as well as on their communication skills and personality. But there are signs you can look out for.

Physical signs
Your child might:

have unexplained bruises, cuts and scratches
come home with missing or damaged belongings or clothes
come home hungry
wet the bed.

Behaviour signs
Your child might:

not want to go to school
be frightened of walking or catching the bus to school
start doing poorly at school
not want to go to social events they previously went to.

Emotional signs
Your child might:

have nightmares
cry a lot
get angry or aggressive more than usual
have mood swings
seem worried or stressed
seem withdrawn
stammer
not want to talk about what’s wrong.

Technology signs
Your child might:

be upset during or after using technology
spend much longer than usual online or stop using their computer or phone
stop what they’re doing on the computer or hide their phone when you’re around.

Other signs
Your child might:

say they feel sick or have a stomach ache
have changes in their eating or sleeping patterns
start to bully others.

Talking or communicating with autistic children and teenagers about bullying

If you think your autistic child is being bullied, you can find out what’s happening by listening and talking with your child. And then when you know more, you can take action and help your child to handle bullying. Calm and caring conversations with you will also help your child feel loved and supported.

When you talk with your child, communicate in a way that matches your child’s communication style. For example, many autistic children benefit from clear and direct communication. You can ask questions like, ‘Did something happen at school today to make you feel sad?’

Or your child might prefer to write about what happened or draw or point to pictures that represent it. You could use picture books and social stories.

If talking about bullying upsets your child, they could play with something calming like a sensory toy while you’re talking together. It might also help if your child does something relaxing after you’ve talked.

Working with schools on bullying towards autistic children and teenagers

If your autistic child is being bullied, get the help of your school as quickly as you can. Schools take bullying extremely seriously. Your child’s teachers will be trained in spotting and handling bullying. They’ll work with you to try to prevent further bullying.

The first step is setting up a meeting with your child’s teacher, or the school administration, school welfare coordinator, or specialist support staff. The meeting is more likely to go well if you can express your concerns clearly and calmly, so think about what you’d like to say before you go into the meeting.

At the meeting, you can explain how the issues are affecting your child and get the school’s perspective. By working with school staff, you can identify the times, places, students and activities that are more likely to put your child at risk of bullying.

You can also ask about the school’s strategies for managing and preventing bullying. For example, the school might have:

safe lunch time options for children, like library, chess or gardening clubs
supervised safe places for children to go if they need to
a member of staff that children know they can report bullying to or a box children can put a note in if they don’t want to speak to someone
a program to promote autism awareness and appreciation of neurodiversity
opportunities for autistic children to connect with other children with similar interests
cooperative group activities that include autistic children socially
a buddy system.

Before you end the meeting, make sure you have a plan for how you and the school are going to manage the situation.

Directly contacting the child doing the bullying or the child’s parents is likely to make the situation worse. It’s always safer and more effective to work with the school or other organisation where bullying is happening than to try to solve bullying on your own.

If the bullying doesn’t stop

If the bullying doesn’t stop even after you’ve spoken to the classroom teacher, it’s still safest to work through the school.

Here are further steps you can take:

Keep a record of what happens and when.
Write a note to the classroom teacher saying that the bullying is still going on. Ask for your concern to be addressed in writing.
Speak to the school principal.
Ask to see the school’s grievance procedure.
Request a meeting to discuss the matter with the school board.
If the bullying doesn’t stop even after you take all the steps above, consider seeking further advice from your school’s regional office.

It takes time to change behaviour, so you might not see overnight results.

If the bullying behaviour is extreme, there might also be reasons to look for help outside the school system.

Support outside the school system

If the bullying is violent, if criminal offences have occurred, or if you think the school has treated you unfairly or unreasonably, you might consider some of these options:

Seek legal advice.
Tell the police.
Apply to the Children’s Court for a restraining order against the person doing the bullying.
Contact the education department or your state or territory ombudsman to make a complaint.

Supporting autistic children and teenagers at home

Your autistic child needs support and love at home if they’re being bullied at school. Your child also needs to know that the situation isn’t their fault and that you’ll help to sort it out.

If you can, it’s important to help your child understand what bullying is. For example, you could use role-play or cartoon strips to show your child the difference between bullying and accidents or misunderstandings. Social stories and storybooks about bullying might also help.

It’s also important for your child to be able to get away from bullying. A prompt card can remind your child of what to do and who to talk to if they’re being bullied. You could also include words for telling the teacher or a note to give to the teacher or put in a bully box.

Check that your child knows where the school’s safe places are. A school map showing the safe places might help your child visualise where to go.

It’s also good to work on your child’s communication and help-seeking skills, so your child is better able to handle difficult situations. For example, you could make sure your child knows to say ‘Stop – I don’t like that’ and to find a teacher if they’re being bullied.

Supportive friends can protect your child from bullying too. By organising playdates or other social activities, you can help your child develop friendships with children at and outside school.

What to do if autistic children and teenagers are bullying others

Here’s what to do if you think your child is bullying others:

Make sure your autistic child knows what bullying is. Help your child understand that calling people names or not including them could be bullying.
Identify what’s causing the problem and try to find out why your child is behaving this way. You might need to help your child find other ways to behave – for example, asking an adult to help your child join in activities. Your child’s class teacher, a specialist support teacher or a psychologist could help you with this.
Talk to the school about its approach to bullying. Ask what you can do from home to support this approach. Contact the school regularly to check how your child is behaving and to see what else you can do to help.
Speak to the professionals who work with your child about therapies or supports that could help your child understand social rules and the effect of their behaviour on others.
Reward your child for positive social behaviour like taking turns. And give clear consequences for bullying. For example, if your child is repeatedly name-calling or excluding someone from an activity, your child might have to miss out on an activity.

Some children bully because they have been bullied. Listen to your child for clues that they might be being bullied.