They should be taught useful social skills for their age group, how to stand up for themselves, and how to know the difference between being teased by kids just joking around and being genuinely bullied.
There are kind and supportive ways to help these kids fit in better with their peers, they should not be treated like some special, handicapped little angels. Most of these kids just don’t have the social skills to interact effectively with the kids in their age group – they don’t know how to initiate interactions, how to tell jokes and take a joke, how to be “fun” and roll with the punches, how being kind is important – but so is setting limits.Too often, these kids are just treated like a cross between a gifted golden child and someone who needs to be pitied and protected from other kids – cordoned off in social isolation with only maybe a few other kids like them.
No one is going to turn these kids into raging extroverts who can take anything on the chin or be a first-class jokester, but they can be helped to fit in better. Maybe they want to be cordoned off with just the few kids that are like them, but let that be their choice. Leaving them to grow up feeling both gifted and cursed, letting them think they have been bullied all their lives when a lot of it was just kids wanting to kid along with them, will follow them all their lives.
Social skills are important all throughout one’s life, not just for making friends, but for success in the work world as well. In some ways, they are more important than academic skills, why don’t we help kids with them more?
Are you being bullied or is it just messing around?
Use the same tone and style of joking around right back with the other person. Make sure to smile and laugh to show “it’s just joking.” If they raise a conniption and get mad, losing all sense of humor, they’re bullying. If they’re able to laugh along too and keep it light, it’s messing around.
I think “just don’t have the social skills” is a minority. I think it tends to be more about having high anxiety, or not fitting in due to some personal or cultural differences. Those things make it harder to learn certain social skills. Sensitive kids seem to have good social skills for things like interacting with individuals or with adults. The action plan would e similar, except that the kids also need treatment for anxiety and help for those other underlying problems.
On the other hand…..teach the other kids how to handle people who are different than them. Stop placing the onus on the kid who is different how to ‘fit it’ and change themselves for the sake of the group. There needs to be a give and take here, and I Feel this just further places the blame on the kid who isn’t the most socially adjusted or interested to capitulate to the ‘norms’ they may not even have interest in. Make the kids meet in the middle instead of forcing the kid to meet others, because that’s all they’re gonna be doing their entire lives then and will be miserable as a result.