Bullying and neurodivergent kids

Bullying can be one of the most difficult parts of being a kid and being a parent. 

And for neurodivergent kids with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia, it can be an additional challenge.

On this episode of Parenting Behavior, host Dr. Andy Kahn talks about handling those challenges — whether your child is being bullied, or is engaging in bullying behavior themselves.

We’d love to hear from you. You can email us at ParentingBehavior@understood.org.

Related resources

• 6 steps to take if your child is being bullied at school 

• Bullying and being bullied: Why it happens and what families can do

• Bullying, learning differences, and how to help 

Timestamps

(00:49) What is bullying? 

(02:49) How to talk to your child about bullying

(04:13) Bullying and neurodivergent kids

Episode transcript

Andy: Bullying can be one of the most difficult parts of being a kid, and it's certainly hard for the parents of those kids. For neurodivergent kids, like those kids with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia, boy, it can be an additional challenge, whether those kids are being bullied, whether they're actually engaging in bullying behaviors themselves. Let's talk about this.

This is "Parenting Behavior" with me, your host, Dr. Andy Kahn. I'm a licensed psychologist and a parent with over 20 years experience helping kids and families navigate challenging behaviors. Today, we're going to talk about bullying and neurodiverse kids.

(00:49) What is bullying?

Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior where someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or some sort of discomfort. Keep in mind, this harm can be emotional, it can be physical. And the other part about it isn't the person whose bullying is often left feeling isolated or is in a situation where they feel disempowered, feeling like sort of everyone's ganging up on them, or they're the only one not included.

The sad reality here is that bullying behaviors are reinforced by how a vulnerable child reacts. If a vulnerable child has big emotions, or if they cry, or if they look really distressed, the bullying seems to be reinforced in this situation because the reaction is predictable. For many of the kids who experience bullying, they don't intend for this to happen.

One way of understanding why bullying happens is that it's an absence of social skill. So, for many of these kids, the negative behaviors come from things like poor models, limited skill, and inappropriate reactions, which are pretty typical from kids. And obviously, there are a number of other factors can come into play.

So, where can bullying happen? It can happen anywhere where your child is interacting. This means it can happen in person, on the phone, by text, by social media. And as a parent, if you see that your child struggling emotionally or they're coming home looking fearful or hurt, it's really important to talk to them about what's going on.

If your child's online communication seems negative, your first instinct might be to pull away the technology or to block them from interacting. And this is a normal parent instinct. Give yourself a break in the situation and say, "Hang on a second. Let me think more broadly about this." Remember, it's important to know more details. OK, how is this bullying happening, and with whom are they having these interactions?

So, digital communication is so important for kids at this age and can be a place where they get very important and positive information. So, fighting that instinct to immediately cut it off is important, and to be more focused on how to help them engage in a more healthy manner with the technologies they're using.

(02:49) How to talk to your child about bullying

Keep in mind that we use the term bullying for a lot of things these days, and your child might be sort of sensitized to this. So, if your child's having a single event where maybe they're getting teased by someone or something happens, that is embarrassing to them, but is not happening as a pattern. Having a kind conversation about these negative experiences is important, but that may not be bullying.

Remember, bullying is a pattern of repetitive behavior. If your kid is having emotional reactions, it's important to be helpful to them. But keep that in mind. Bullying is a term that gets thrown around an awful lot. Keep in mind that when you're talking to your child, be open to hearing how they're feeling and be there as a support and validate what they're experiencing. It may not be something you need to fix immediately.

In addition, if your child knows that you're a safe space to come and talk about these things, they're much more likely to share information with you in the future and to bring up topics that you might not have otherwise seen. There may be more subtle things that your child may think of as being bullied. Things like being excluded from a group, or being in a situation where they're being picked on in a single event, or they did something embarrassing. They're more likely to have a response in those moments.

So, be present and be there as a support for your child to talk about these events. Keep in mind, as you're open to your child and provide a safe space, they're much more likely to share with you things in the future that may be going on and can help stop some bullying behavior if they're being exposed to it.

(04:13) Bullying and neurodivergent kids

Something that's overlooked in bullying is the fact that it isn't always the kids you think it's going to be. Bullying isn't this overt meanness that we always see on TV and movies. It can be something more subtle, and bullying can emerge because of a lot of social difficulties. Remember, kids with learning and thinking differences may have social skills deficits, which makes them more vulnerable to bullying. It also makes them more susceptible to developing bullying behaviors.

The idea that bullying isn't always some intentional thing. Kids are trying to figure out their social world, so they make certain errors that may turn into bullying. And this is something we may need to help them with. Imagine a child with a learning and thinking difference is having trouble regulating their emotions, and they get into a social situation where they invade the space of someone else.

In these circumstances, they may not know the difference between using teasing language or being playful with other people, and they may engage in something that hurts someone's feelings. But if the reactions are laughter or people seem to be more engaged, that behavior is going to be reinforced.

Other times, kids with impulse control issues might have trouble reading the room and do things that make other people laugh in ways that hurt people's feelings. So, remember, bullying is easily reinforced and usually it's the result of some social skills deficit. As a parent, if your child is engaging in bullying behavior, it's really important to chat with them about helping to build up their social skills and to build more awareness of how their behavior affects other people. That empathy side of things.

As we work on building social skills with our kids and supporting them to act in a more kind and appropriate way, we can actually reduce bullying just by training in social skills. With that reinforcement piece of bullying, it's really understandable that a kid can play the role of a bully without really being aware of it in that moment in time. You can help your child understand that even if they're making others laugh, it may not be something that they should do because it comes at the expense of other people.

Even if you're mad at your child's behavior for engaging in these inappropriate activities or bullying others, it's important to try to stay calm and keep that in perspective. Remember, for kids who have learning and thinking differences, particularly language issues, they may need really specific support in how to talk to other people and how to interact. So, keep in mind your child might need some really focused help in this area.

Kids with learning and thinking differences may take it really hard when they realize that what they're doing is hurting other people. And as a parent, teaching your child how to forgive themselves and how to navigate this by learning new strategies and activities can be super helpful.

Thanks for listening to this episode of "Parenting Behavior with Dr. Andy Kahn." We'd love to hear from you if you have any thoughts on the show. You can email us at parentingbehavior@understood.org. I'll put that email in the show notes too, where you can also find more resources and links to anything we mentioned.

"Parenting Behavior with Dr. Andy Kahn" is brought to you by Understood.org. It's produced and edited by Cody Nelson. Editorial guidance by Rae Jacobson. Music and mixing by Justin D. Wright. Ilana Millner is our supervising producer. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. For Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Seth Melnick.

Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to support us as we go through with our important mission, please consider donating. Go to Understood.org/give.