I agree Doodle that autistic children can be hurtful to others but never, in my experience, intending to hurt or belittle. Often the solution is to simply tell them they shouldn’t do a particular thing, not to expect them to work it out for themselves.
One child would ( very gifted artistically) would look at others art work and say That’s rubbish. Which it was by his standards.
Saying it hurts their feelings made no difference. It saying you can think that but you mustn’t say it stopped him immediately.
What’s interesting me is the response of those who are finding all sorts of reasons why this child shouldn’t take responsibility for his actions and who are moving the responsibility for solving the problem onto adults rather than leaving it squarely with him.
I agree he needs help but not to excuses or justify his actions with thinking like “what he did is of no consequence “ “it was a mistake” the child who was bullied will befine”, perhaps he’s autistic and can’t help it.
That won’t help him to change or develop his social skills which seem to be poor. It will only encourage him to continue with the expectations that he can present as the victim and that adults can compel other children to to accept him regardless.
It is doing him no favours at all and leaves the other children with a deep sense of injustice and resentment which ultimately won’t help him either.
The only way to put this right is to help him farce up honestly and with genuine regret to the wrong of what he did. Then the forgiveness that another poster called for can genuinely take place.
