I saw this yesterday and it really, really bothered me. My son is older now and he handles adult bullies like this teacher better than he did at that age. His first experience with an adult bully was in a gymnastics class at age 5. I could tell that the new teacher didn't like the way he talked--he talked like a geek even at 5--and she didn't like the fact that he took longer to do the activities and when he flopped to the floor when he landed in a very uncoordinated manner. The previous teacher thought it was cute the way he talked and she always asked him to go look at the clock and tell her what time it was because none of the other kids in the class knew how to tell time. He really liked her and she seemed to like him. He was heartbroken when the new gymnastics instructor gave all the other kids a sticker as a reward for doing well and then told him that he didn't get one because he didn't do well enough in front of everyone. I had already told the owner of the gymnastics class about his hypotonia and I am sure the instructor knew about it also, but she didn't care. I walked out that day after telling the owner that I would not be back and why. It still upsets me to think about it. I think that probably nothing was said to the instructor. People in the sports obsessed community where we live think nothing of verbally abusing kids like mine. Even the musical theatre teacher used to verbally abuse him in front of his friends even though she knew about the hypotonia, until he stood up to her, looked her straight in the eye and calmly and firmly said something back to her that I didn't think sounded disrespectful, but definitely let her know that he would not tolerate it any more. She didn't know I was listening. I was so proud of him that day and I told him so. I told him that he has the right to protect himself from verbal bullies whether they are adults or not.
He didn't want me to say anything last year to the YMCA swimming instructor who called him a wuss and I respected that. He said he was okay but that he didn't want to take swimming lessons from anyone who was going to be condescending toward him, so we stopped going there too. It seems there is no place for us except on online message boards. I have found that there are a lot of not very nice people around here, even among the homeschoolers. I see the world from a completely different perspective now than I did as the mom of a pretty cheerleader.
