Problems with my 7 year old daughter on the school bus. Help!?

Question

My 7 year old daughter is a very high functioning autistic child. She's getting great grades in regular school, is a beautiful kid, and generally a very happy kid, despite having a few communications problems. She is a tough kid, never bothered by scraping her knee or falling down, etc. She does cry easily if someone forgets to put her favorite scarf or mittens in her backpack when she comes home from school or if she feels like her schedule has been changed without warning her in advance.
Some of the bigger kids on the bus have been teasing her because she whines and cries easily and often. By often, I mean comes home crying about once or twice a month. She has a long bus ride, and it must be hellish to put up with that much teasing every day.
So my question is what, if anything should I do to try to curb the teasing? It has become bad enough that the bus driver has her sit in the front of the bus to protect her.

Kids on the bus range from kindergarten through high school. The kids that are teasing are 12 - 16 years old. I can be quite the over protective Dad, and I don't want to over react, embarrass my daughter, or create problems, but not having a problem confronting kids, parents, or school either.

Answer 1

I am sorry to hear that your daughter is going through this. It is a very common problem, especially on school buses. From the perspective of a retired "used to be" elementary school principal, the school bus is the most difficult area to control in terms of behavior.

You have to go to the school first. Talk to the principal and explain what is happening and ask what plan the school has to deal with bullies. Most schools today have an anti-bullyng plan in place because bullying has become such a problem in schools. Before you go to the principal try to find out from your daughter exactly who the bullies are and exactly what they do. The principal will be more easily able to take measures if s/he has factual information. Begin keeping a written record of every day your daughter describes an incident.

Have the kids who travel on your daughter's bus had an information session about autism? Possibly they recognize that there is something different about your daughter, but don't understand what the difference is, and think she is just being whiny, and often any child who is different is the one bullies will pick on. Bullies are basically cowards, and won't pick on any child they think might get support from the other kids. Consider asking the principal about an information session for the kids on her bus so that they understand your daughter's condition better, and why she behaves as she does, and most likely a support group will develop. Even one strong friend on that bus will make a huge difference. Developing peer support groups is one of the absolute best ways to prevent bullying.

Contacting the parents of the bullies may be an avenue to pursue. In my experience, often parents of bullies don't believe that their child would do that, but sometimes the parents can be your biggest support if they believe and understand the situation. One point about bullying is that often kids who bully are being bullied themselves in some aspect of their lives. Most bullies are living very stressful lives in one way or another.

One of the things our school district did was install video cameras on about 4 of the numerous buses we had. The kids didn't ever know which buses actually had the cameras as there were "dummy" cameras on every bus, and the real cameras were moved from bus to bus regularly so that all buses were monitored some of the time. Ask if there are any plans to install video monitoring on the buses. It is impossible for the bus driver to monitor child behavior and also be a safe driver.

In your area would your daughter be eligible to have a support worker travel on the school bus to supposedly monitor her, but to actually monitor the others? We had some situaitons like that, and by using that sort of "loophole" we were able to have an adult worker on several buses.

Make sure that the school takes it seriously (I think they will, based upon how we would have handled it) and ask if there is any way you can help with this. You may be a strong support in implementing a better anti-bullying campaign at the school. It might be a good idea for your daughter's class to have a familiarity session about the nature of autism also. Kids can be amazing when they are given the opportunity to understand.

Bullies do not go away without intervention, so you will have to be proactive, and going to the school is your first step. Also, I have answered several questions here about different aspects of bullying over the past year, and I am sure there have been dozens of other questions about bullying that I did not see. Do a search here on Yahoo Answers for bullying and I think you will find many suggestions. I know many of the answers will refer you to good websites that might help both you and your daughter.

I have given you a couple of links to get you started. They will also give you resources to suggest to the school if there is no anti-bullying program in place. Best of luck with getting this sorted. Take care.

Answer 2

As a parent I would say contact the school and talk to them. They might be able to do something and be sure the bus driver knows whats going on also.
As a girl who was picked on in school for being super short and with red hair, I can say telling the teachers does nothing. There are some kids who are just mean regardless. Sometimes it does help but the kids will find a way around it and still tease but maybe not as bad. However if you find a teacher who actually cares, They can be helpful, most in my experience dint care. I had gotten to the point that I would just walk out of my class and head straight to the office and talk directly to the principle.
Also in my experience, people who tease are insecure or jealous and just looking for attention. Good luck!

Answer 3

I teach the age group of bullies you speak of. That is such a tough age. And it is unfortunatly the age most kids become bullies. I would definantly speak to the bus driver & make sure they are aware of your child's needs. Her sitting in the front should DEFINANTLY happen. Bus drivers are paid very little & have a tough job. They see this kind of thing all of the time but usually won't address it until the parent voices concern. I had to drive a bus once in an emergency situation & it was unnerving. I had to pay attention to the road & tune out the kids. Follow your heart on this. And maybe talk to your daughter & give her some whitty comebacks to say to those kids like " I'm sorry....I didnt realize you were so jealous of me". Good luck to you.

Answer 4

Call the bus transportation and threaten a lawsuit! This is terrible! Kids can be so cruel! I don't think they really mean "harm", it's just a stage kids go through. But, if your the one recieving it, it hurts! Don't be nice with the transportation either. You won't get results if you do. And don't let them tell you they are doing everything possible. There are laws against bully's at school! I'v got 4 kids and have a number of different problems with the schools and unless you are frank with them and contact the board of education or the transportation department, you don't get much, if anything, done. And, be firm. Threaten to get a lawyer, or tell the local news what's going on with your school and that they are letting it go on. They WILL do something to stop it. They don't want publicity. Those other kid's parents need to be notified of what is going on aslo. They will not give you names and numbers, they have to do that. The kids need to start by getting punished for this kind of behavior. And, if it should continue, get a detention or suspension. That should stop it. Good luck to you.

Answer 5

You should discuss the situation with the school counselors, principle and bus driver/supervisor (not that it's the bus drivers fault, but because drivers may change). There may not be anything you can do about it at this age? My daughter has a lazy eye and was teased by kids a lot too. Eventually she learned to ignore them and they all grew up and learned to accept that was just the way she looked. She's a junior in HS now, and I never hear that she is teased about her eye anymore.

I'm sure it's much harder to your daughter to deal with emotionally, but if she can learn to ignor them it would help. Maybe if she could listen to headphones she wouldn't hear them?

The other alternative is to take her off the bus, of course then you are responsible to get her to/from school. Lots of parents transport their kids in our community.

Answer 6

The solution is simple--drive her to and from school. School bus drivers are the most powerless people in our society. They are charged with single-handedly maintaining order over up to 70 kids at a time who are unrestrained and can range in age from 3 to 18, all while negotiating a large vehicle with a high center of gravity through traffic in all kinds of weather conditions. Oh, did I neglect to mention that the bus drivers are given no authority to maintain order and have, indeed, gotten fired for refusing to drive the bus while the kids are being unruly? (This is true; a woman in Georgia had to go to court against the district who did this to her--she won her suit).

By the way, most districts do not transport children with mental or physical handicaps with the general student population for just the reasons you mentioned. Instead, they transport disabled students on their own bus(es). You might want to find out why your district does not have such a policy. Still, I think the best solution all around is to transport your child yourself. School buses are the most dangerous places in America, IMHO

Answer 7

Unfortunately, there's not alot you can do. My daughter is still an infant, so I can't share any parental advice. But, I was the kid that got picked on all the time on my school bus.

Kids get picked on, especially when they're different. What makes your daughter special to you, also makes her a target for bullies. Sometimes kids are just mean. It helped prepare me for the real world, where sometimes adults are just mean.

I know your daughter is in a different situation because of her mental challenges, but it sounds like she's accomplishing alot elsewhere.

I think that the best thing you can do is to comfort her and encourage her. If she has some friends on the bus, encourage her to sit with them (though asking another child to step in front of a bully is sometimes a lofty challenge).

Good luck, and I hope she finds a healthy way to deal with the situation.

Answer 8

While I am very sympathetic to the plight of your daughter, I know enough about kids to know that they can be very cruel once they identify another's weakness.
The only thing that I could think of is to ask the school Principal to initiate some awareness sessions with the students in an attempt to change their behaviour.
The bottom line is that your daughter is going to have to learn how to deal with it, because any attempt you make on her behalf could backfire and result in more as opposed to less teasing.

Answer 9

Call the school principle and have a meeting make sure to get the students names. If the bus company is hired by the school like my school has get someone from the bus company including the bus driver to be there to and explain to the prinicple what is going on and He/She should take care of it. Its happening on a school bus so the school has power to give them punishment like if they where in school i belive i am not positive. it might be different in your school If the principle doesn't do much go straight to the Superitendent

Answer 10

Time to call in the big guns. Get those little creatins names and tell the principal that he/she had better do something about it or you will. I'm talking lawyer here nothing physical. You mention a lawyer and I think you'll get them moving on this. GOOD LUCK!!
God, I HATE bullies.