Hi there,

If you say the word “bullying” in a classroom full of elementary school kids, here’s what happens: hands shoot up. Everyone has a story about how someone bullied them.

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Bullying is a serious problem that can have devastating effects. As a clinician, I’ve seen more than a few adult clients brought to tears by memories of horrifying peer abuse. I’ve seen kids who feel frightened or wounded by their peers’ cruel words or actions, and parents who feel angry or helpless in the face of their child’s victimization.

I’m glad that there’s much more awareness now that bullying is not just “normal” kid behavior or a rite of passage, and that entire communities need to work actively to prevent it.

But sometimes the “B word” is thrown around too casually.

Researchers have a very specific definition: bullying involves deliberate, aggressive acts targeting a particular individual repeatedly, over time (although some researchers also count a single severe aggressive act), and it involves a power difference between the bully and the target.

In other words, the bully is bigger, stronger, tougher, or more socially powerful than the person being bullied, which makes it difficult or impossible for the target to defend themselves.

A lot of what children call bullying is really just ordinary meanness, because there’s no power difference.

I want to be very clear: I’m not defending or excusing bullying or any form of meanness. But I do think that calling every unkind act “bullying” is not helpful.

When we fail to distinguish between the two, we trivialize the very serious cases of peer abuse. We also send an unhealthy message to kids: You’re fragile. You can’t handle it if anyone is even slightly unkind to you.

A child’s distress, on its own, is not the measure of bullying. Hearing peers yell, “You’re out! Yes, you are!” in a game of kickball might be very upsetting for a child who doesn’t believe they’re out, but it’s probably not bullying. It’s something they need to learn how to handle. We can comfort them. We can teach them coping strategies. But labeling the other kids “bullies” won’t help them learn to deal with frustration or manage conflicts.

Anyone who has spent substantial time with children knows they are often mean to each other.

Debra Pepler at York University and her colleagues video recorded the playground behavior of children in 1st through 6th grade. The kids had been identified by their teachers as either especially aggressive or especially nonaggressive.

On average, the aggressive children did some form of mean behavior about every two minutes. But those carefully selected nonaggressive children averaged a mean behavior every three minutes.

Even kids who consider themselves best friends sometimes behave in unkind ways. Preschool and early elementary friends average just under three conflicts an hour.

An observational study of third- through sixth-graders by Steven Asher and his colleagues found a cringe-worthy list of 32 different ways kids reject each other — everything from hitting and kicking, to “Nuh-uh!” / “Uh-huh!” arguments, to refusing to let someone sit at a lunch table, to “You can’t be in our club!”

Impulsivity, immature problem-solving skills, difficulty managing feelings, limited perspective-taking, following the crowd, or just experimenting with social power — any of these can lead kids to do mean things.

Any of these behaviors could be upsetting for a child. They’re certainly not desirable. But they only “count” as bullying if there’s a power difference between the kids.

True bullying is a serious problem that requires intervention from adults. Ordinary meanness is common, and it’s something kids need to be able to handle, with encouragement and support from caring adults, when necessary, and to learn to avoid doing it themselves.

We adults haven’t managed world peace or even perfect marriages. So it’s unrealistic to think our children will always be perfectly kind to each other.

And yet, kindness is a worthy goal.

As parents, we can help our children cope with the meanness they will inevitably encounter. And even more important, we can guide them toward more caring responses to their peers.

That’s the work, and it starts with seeing clearly what we’re dealing with.

Warm wishes,
Dr. Eileen

P.S. If you’ve found yourself in the thick of your child’s friendship conflicts lately, wondering when to step in, when to step back, and how to help them handle the hard moments — my self-paced, online course, Kid Conflicts: How Parents Can Help walks through three of the most common scenarios: when another kid was mean to your kid, when your kid annoys other kids, and when your kid has a frenemy. Take a look.

Dr. Friendtastic for Parents is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.