A Door to Understanding Bullying and Teaching Kindness and Tolerance

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This post is part of the series titled “When One Door Closes, Another Door Opens,” where people reveal how their paths have changed since a child with special needs has entered their lives.~ Danette

My door did not shut when my daughter was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome as this actually brought understanding into our lives.  Instead, the door slammed shut when a group of mean girls targeted my daughter and I learned their parents were okay with their behavior.  That is when my world turned upside down and I began a mission as another door cracked open for me to step through.  My task, of educating others about girls on the high end of the autism spectrum, the effects of bullying, and the importance of tolerance, acceptance, and forgiveness, started.

I quit work to help my daughter cope.  I started by educating her school as to how they could help.  I could have stopped there and maybe I would have except that I knew that if I really wanted my children to grow up in a better world, I had to do more.

I read every book on sensory sensitivity and Asperger’s that I could find.  I bought books on bullying that I read cover to cover, and I talked to the local contact at BullyPolice.org.  I explored the local bookstores to see what tween girls were reading.  I set my TiVo wish list to include autism, bullying, and Asperger’s Syndrome.  I attended conferences and I googled and read more.

I researched young adult and middle school books to see what the girls were reading.  Most of the books series for middle school girls were about being mean to be popular.  Since then the Gossip Girl books that are all about girls being mean has been turned into a TV show and now Pretty Little Liars has been too. The least harmful of the books was The Clique books and these were made into a movie.

I realized the root of the mean girl problem was not the school.  The root of the problem was lack of understanding of differences, and how being mean should not be okay.  I decided I had to do something which is how the book idea was born.

I started writing my book, Delightfully Different to teach kindness and tolerance.  Initially I wrote our true story, and then reality hit me like a ton of bricks.  I couldn’t use our story! The story had to be fiction to protect my daughter and to protect those who harmed her too ironically.  Still, I did not want to trivialize the facts, so it is fiction with all events and all characters changed to protect the innocent and not so innocent.  I had trouble figuring out how to do this while still explaining how lack of understanding and bullying affects not only the victim, but the entire family.  This is where my sister-in-law and my friends, including a friend who is a free lance editor, helped.

I ultimately wrote part of the story with a cast of characters that would have helped during that time.  The core family of a mom who grew up in the south and loves the Rocky Mountains, a dad who is Chinese American and grew up in Hawaii, a daughter who loves music and a talkative son resembles my family.  All of the rest of the story, except for the sensory traits of Asperger’s Syndrome and the affects of bullying, is fiction.

The rough draft took almost three years to write, but it took extensive rewrites while working with a cast of editors starting with an initial editorial reviewer, followed by a wonderful developmental editor who was able to give me ideas of how to put in details I needed to tie the story neatly together, a content editor, a copy editor, a quality review editor and a proofreader to help me to make it the book it is today.  The entire process for getting the book in print took almost four years, but it was fun and I’m so glad I did it.  The best money I spent was on the editing.  I had not written fiction since college prior to this although I have always read extensively.

Getting the message out that the world needs to change to a place of tolerance of differences and hopefully to acceptance of differences is truly my mission.  The question of how to do this while remaining anonymous came up from the day I took on this task.  Not an easy thing to do in this age of technology.

Ultimately, my daughter agreed to my writing my blog, dswalkerauthor.com and to my using my real name to get the message to more people, as long as I am careful about sharing too many personal stories about her.  She and I have come to the decision that it is not possible to remain completely anonymous and also promote the message.  Still, I am very protective of her and of the rest of my family, and I will not apologize for this.  That is why the book was originally published under my pen name and I have kept it and the blog under this name.

I never wanted the spot light, and in the past I have done everything I could to avoid being noticed.  Therefore, I would never have believed I would be trying to get media exposure.  Yet, that is what I have been doing since I published my novel.  On the night of February 7, 2011, I was a guest on a call-in radio show, “The Body Show” on KIPO, Hawaii Public Radio talking about Asperger’s Syndrome.  I have a link to the podcast on my blog.

This cause is that important to me.  The people who chose to bully my child and the parents who did not realize how serious this was forced me to overcome my own desire to stay out of the spot light.  They started me on a mission to change the climate of meanness in our schools and in our society.  This adult, who might have otherwise only spoken to close friends and family about my views, is now working to get others to listen.