I recently wrote about the first instance of bullying by a child that we have experienced and how my daughter handled it. Well, it has been a month since that incident and she has repeated it–except she has become the antagonist.
It started during her imaginative play with her dolls. I heard her in her bedroom making different voices and her dolls were fighting. It ended with her wisest doll telling everyone that being a bully is not nice. And so I thought this was no big deal and needed no further intervention and left it alone.
But the other night we were out and a little boy slapped Ally at the play area in a restaurant after she had tormented him calling him “smelly and weird.” All of the children chimed in and the boy snapped.
His mother was apologizing to me profusely but I told her not to.
When I asked Ally to apologize for saying mean things and hurting his feelings she did but then continued repeating the phrases like they were funny.
Oh no…now what do I do? She thinks that this is okay. Or is she just repeating and acting out scenes from the girl in the red dress? She is so clever that the lines between reality and echolalia get blurred. This is where autism parenting could use a handbook.
I don’t know how long it is going to take to undo the damage. Or to learn this lesson. To overcome this.
We’re going to keep telling her and showing her that this is wrong.
That it is not funny.
And it is not okay.
I can only hope that other parents are doing the same because bullying is like a virus. Once a kid is exposed, they spread it around like a head cold. I’m not 100% sure on how to treat this but I am trying.
Feel free to leave your thoughts or advice in the comments.
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