This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write, and my heart is completely shattered. At summer camp this week, my sweet, 13-year-old autistic son was targeted and bullied. Kids stole his money and his paintball wristband, told him he had no friends, and made horrific threats against our family. Despite all of this darkness, my amazing boy still managed to say he had a good time.
When I picked him up on Friday afternoon, I could sense the shift in his energy immediately. The vibrant, endlessly curious boy who had eagerly packed his duffel bag on Monday was unusually quiet, staring out the car window. It took hours of gentle coaxing that evening, sitting on the edge of his bed while he meticulously lined up his favorite action figures, for the truth to finally spill out.
He recounted the missing twenty-dollar bill. He explained how they cornered him by the cabins for the wristband. He repeated the cruel, jagged words they hissed at him when the counselors’ backs were turned.
My blood boiled. A visceral, suffocating wave of anger washed over me. I wanted to drive right back to those campgrounds and demand answers. I wanted to wrap him in bubble wrap and shield him from a world that so often fails to understand his brilliant, beautiful, and unique mind. How could anyone look at a gentle kid who just wants to share his encyclopedic knowledge of space exploration and choose cruelty?
But then, as I sat there silently crying, overwhelmed by the malice of strangers, my son stopped lining up his figures. He looked up at me, wiped a tear off my cheek with his thumb, and said, “Mom, don’t cry. I did lose my money. And those boys were mean. But did you know there was a creek behind the dining hall?”
His eyes regained that familiar spark as he told me about a counselor named David. David had noticed my son sitting alone after the paintball incident. Instead of pitying him or forcing him into a crowded group, David handed him a small net and a jar. For the rest of the week, while those bullies wasted their time harboring ugliness, my son and David spent their free periods catching and cataloging water striders, tadpoles, and a “remarkably large” bullfrog.
He didn’t focus on the boys who told him he had no friends. He focused on the fact that he made one great friend who understood him.
We are absolutely dealing with the camp administration. We are having the hard, necessary conversations, demanding strict accountability, and making sure no other child has to endure what he did. I will fight like hell for his safety.
But tonight, as he sleeps peacefully down the hall, I am not just a heartbroken parent—I am a deeply humbled one. They tried their hardest to break him, to dim his shine, and to make him feel small. But my son possesses a superpower they could never understand: an unbreakable capacity for joy. He looked at a week tainted by human ugliness and chose to remember the bullfrogs.
