Although bullying has always existed it has recently taken new proportions. With the emergence of the Internet, it has been so widespread now that it has even driven some teens to commit serious acts of violence or even suicide. There is surely something that we as parents are able to do in order to educate to prevent this from turning into cancer in our school yards.
When a person suffers from a disability, the bullying often takes more serious proportions, the victim is very often so severely impaired that he or she is not able to ward off the aggressors. Our school system has done some serious work on Government and private initiatives that aim at eliminating this from our student’s reality, and when you combine the aggression itself with filming the aggression and making it viral, the consequences are often devastating.
One thing parents of bullied children and teens do is get them help, sometimes medication and counseling to assist them in handling these types of situations that often happen almost every single day. Some of them are able to successfully handle it while for others, it’s an everyday struggle.
This is something that Jonathan Moran, and his family know all too well. Jonathan suffers from high-functioning autism. He has been bullied throughout his life and autism has only made it more difficult for him to handle it, responding in a violent way during these quarrels. One day he was riding on the school bus when another of these bullying episodes took place, the bullies started calling him names like “fat”, “stupid” and “cracker”, and making fun of his shoes. Jonathan who usually responds to this in a bad way took another course of action.
He remained calm through the incident even after he suffered punches to his face that broke his glasses and split his lip. The local firefighters responded to this incident, and upon arrival, evaluated the situation, treated his injuries and drove Jonathan home. Once he was at home, there was something about that incident that struck a chord in all of them.
They talked to each other and came to realize that it was not fair and that there must be something that they could do to make it easier on Jonathan. They all decided to chip in so they could see him at his home and get him a surprise. The day, or in this case evening, finally came and the firefighters drove to Jonathan’s home and recorded the whole surprise!