Autistic teen got bullied by a group of boys who thought he was ‘weird,' so he made them watch a 20-minute clip
People who turn into bullies only change their ways when an event or an incident hits them in their hearts and they realize their wrongdoings. Gavin Joseph, a young man with autism, was faced with a choice of reprimanding a group of boys after they bullied and beat him for being different, per the Independent. However, instead of pressing charges and taking other hostile approaches, the boy set an example of kindness by making an unusual request.
The boys thought that Joseph, who had Asperger’s syndrome, was “weird” and poked at him due to autism. His mom, Cortnie Stone, shared in a post on Facebook how his cruel experience turned into a hopeful one. She revealed that the boy had the condition since he was 3 years old and life had been different ever since. “You can't ‘see’ Asperger's since it's not a visible disability, it's a social/emotional one that makes relationships difficult to attain,” she explained, per Huffington Post. The mom noted that the condition affected Joseph’s daily interactions.
“He can appear rude, impatient, ‘weird,’ detached or uninterested but this is not intentional. He can also be kind, generous and forgiving but even this can appear awkward at times because some of it is learned and not always natural,” the mom pointed out. Stone mentioned that the teenage years had been especially tough for Joseph “because all the sudden people around you are consistently ‘breaking’ all the social do's and don'ts you've spent years learning.” A similar situation struck among the boys and Joseph. They described him as “weird and creepy” for attending events alone, being isolated and wanting to be friends with strangers. Unfortunately, the bullying didn’t stop there. After a kid overheard these conversations about Joseph, they planned a different course of action.
"He didn't ask questions, didn't get to know Gavin, never met him and didn't give him a chance to leave. He was called to meet someone, surrounded by people he didn't know, choked, punched and left laying on the pavement so he would ‘learn his lesson,’” Stone painfully recalled. After the brutal encounter, Joseph still chose to let the boys go by teaching them an unexpected but much-needed lesson. He requested they be taught about autism and the life he lived. “He requested their community service be disability-related, that they write a paper on Asperger’s and that they watch a 20-minute video statement he taped while their families were present so they could see the damage they did and hear the event from his perspective.”
Throughout, Joseph’s aim was only to make the bullies understand the damage they'd done because of their misunderstandings and lack of empathy. “Gavin is fine. He has a mild concussion, a bruised esophagus, the tip of his nose fractured and hematoma in his eye, but nothing permanent,” Stone noted. She was proud that her boy did not let the incident make him a bitter person and offered a punishment that would hopefully bring a change in the mindset of the bullies.