When Ayub Literally Punched A Kid In The Face

Today was a bad day.

Ayub had taekwondo practice. Before the class started, he punched a little boy in the mouth and split his lip. There was blood.

My heart sank when I found out.

When Ayub came home, he had “that look”. It’s the look he gets when he’s been totally overwhelmed with sensory input. It’s the look he gets when he’s at the edge of a shutdown.

I went to his room and he was sitting in the dark with the fan off, staring at the wall. I asked him what happened and he replied, “a boy asked me to punch him, but I didn’t know it was supposed to be like playing punching, so I just punched him.”

Apparently many of the kids were pretend fighting, practising their taekwondo moves on each other before class. But Ayub didn’t get it.

Like a lot of people on the autism spectrum, Ayub takes things literally. It’s taken years for him to understand the concept of jokes while sarcasm remains a completely foreign concept.

My hearts hurts extra for him today. Someone literally asked Ayub to punch him, so Ayub literally punched him.

It wasn’t an accident, he did it on purpose. But it was a totally misread social cue. A complete communication fuck up on his part. No malice, no ill intent. But that doesn’t change the fact that an innocent kid got his lip split open.

Ugh I don’t know. Autism is not an excuse, but it is a reason.

Ayub feels awful about what happened. He understands that he misunderstood. We can’t apologise enough to that little boy and his family. And once again, I’m terrified for Ayub. Because while this situation may be forgiven as a child, it certainly won’t be for a teenager or adult.