DOOLY's WISH

Posted: 5/11/2012

My daughter Johanna has PDNOS and is on the Austim Spectrum. She was severely bullied at school. They stole her IPOD, took her money, made her do their homework, continually teased her to the place where she was the last into school, and the first out. Johanna never wanted to join any after school activities, because she could not enjoy herself, because she was always on edge, waiting for the next incident to start up.  Much of Johanna's problems, were her misunderstanding of  non verbal body language. She also had problems, accepting even a kind child’s reaching out, because she had lost her trust in her peers acceptance.

Johanna is very high functioning but struggles socially, especially within her own age group. Her appearance is almost completely normal, so many children saw her social struggles, her gestures as weird or different from the others, and did not have a kind heart and reach out to her. Part of the reason for the continuing of the bullingy, is because children with special needs, do not report the times that they are bullied.  They just want to be accepted, have friends, and not be called a tattletail.  They just want to be like everyone else.

As the years went on, we fought with our school district to do something to help Johanna enjoy school and be a typical student.  Eventually the bullying go so severe we had to hire and lawyer and remove  her from the school. When a child "hit her for not doing his homework" it took an violent act and a kind hearted lawyer that fought with all her strength, to get Johanna into another high school that was better able to handle children with her type of special needs.  Johanna went on to be happy, make some friends and graduate with honors
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Together with her talent for drawing and her story we created a website called DOOLY's WISH, that we hope to use to bring awareness to this issue. 

Johanna producted a T-shirt that we sell  to raise money to support our efforts to educate other children that bullying, especially a special needs child,  is just NOT OK.  We have wrist bands  that state "Stand Up for a Special Kid – Be a  Hero". Because of Johanna’s struggles, we are trying to help another child, aid another parent, and to "Start a Movement" to STOP the Bullying of a Special Needs Child.  

Johanna's high school has proudly produced a bullying video that stars Johanna and her story. We are so proud of this video that is now in the last stages of being finalized and will be shown in schools in our area.  

Parents do not know where to turn to help their children.  We are working hard to get the audience to tell her story. We want to start a movement to save a child. Dooly's dream is that no child has to endure the bullying that she went through just because she is Special.

By: Jo