Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged kids that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.serious, lasting problems

In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include:  An Imbalance of Power: Kids who bully use their power—such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity—to control or harm others. Power imbalances can change over time and in different situations, even if they involve the same people.  Repetition: Bullying behaviors happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.  Bullying includes intentionally aggressive behavior with intent to harm.

Verbal bullying is saying or writing mean things. Verbal bullying includes:  Teasing  Name-calling  Inappropriate sexual comments  Taunting  Threatening to cause harm

Social bullying, sometimes referred to as relational bullying, involves hurting someone’s reputation or relationships. Social bullying includes:  Leaving someone out on purpose  Telling others not to be friends with someone  Spreading rumors about someone  Embarrassing someone in public

Physical bullying involves hurting a person’s body or possessions. Physical bullying includes:  Hitting/kicking/pinching  Spitting  Tripping/pushing  Taking or breaking someone’s things  Making mean or rude hand gestures

Bullying can occur during or after school hours. While most reported bullying happens in the school building, a significant percentage also happens in places like on the bus. It can also happen travelling to or from school, in the neighborhood, or on the Internet.

There are many other types of aggressive behavior that don’t fit the definition of bullying. This does not mean that they are any less serious or require less attention than bullying. Rather, these behaviors require different prevention and response strategies.

 It is not bullying when two kids with no perceived power imbalance, fight, have an argument, or disagree.  Conflict resolution may be appropriate for these situations.

 Although bullying and harassment sometimes overlap, not all bullying is harassment and not all harassment is bullying.  Under federal civil rights laws, harassment is unwelcome conduct based on a protected class (race, national origin, color, sex, age, disability, religion) that is severe, pervasive, or persistent and creates a hostile environment.

Rude = Inadvertently saying or doing something that hurts someone else. Mean = Purposefully saying or doing something to hurt someone once (or maybe twice.)

 From kids, rudeness might look more like burping in someone’s face, jumping ahead in line, bragging about achieving the highest grade, or even throwing a crushed up pile of leaves in someone’s face.  On their own, any of these behaviors could appear as elements of bullying, but when looked at in context, incidents of rudeness are usually spontaneous, unplanned inconsiderate, based on thoughtlessness, or poor manners, but not meant to actually hurt someone.

 The main distinction between “rude” and “mean” behavior has to do with intention; while rudeness is often unintentional, mean behavior very much aims to hurt or depreciate someone.  Kids are mean to each other when they criticize clothing, appearance, intelligence, coolness, or just about anything else they can find to denigrate.  Meanness also sounds like words spoken in anger— impulsive cruelty that is often regretted in short order.  Very often, mean behavior in kids is motivated by angry feelings and/or the mis-guided goal of propping themselves up in comparison to the person they are putting down.

 Make no mistake; mean behaviors can wound deeply and adults can make a huge difference in the lives of young people when they hold kids accountable for being mean.  Yet, meanness is different from bullying in important ways that should be understood and differentiated when it comes to intervention.

BullyingBeing Mean  Intentionally Aggressive Behavior with intent to Harm  Imbalance of power  Repeated over time  Behavior meant to hurt someone, maybe once or twice  Spoken in anger  Often regretted quickly

 It is important to distinguish between rude, mean, and bullying so that teachers, school administrators, police, youth workers, parents, and kids all know what to pay attention to and when to intervene.  As we have heard too often in the news, a child’s life may depend on an adult’s ability to discern between rudeness at the bus stop and life- altering bullying.

Questions? See your counselor, a trusted teacher, Mrs. Maurer, Ms. Lynch-Allen, Mr. Geving, Mike or any other adult you feel safe with. Also, tell your parents.