What is Bullying?
What is Bullying?
- Bullying is aggressive and unwanted behavior that is intended to harm, intimidate, or humiliate the target.
- Conflict is a disagreement between two or more people where each person involved is participating. It may involve repeated discussion and actions by all parties and may go on for a period of time before resolution occurs.
What’s the Difference? Rude vs. Mean vs. Bullying Behavior
Rude – inadvertently saying or doing something that hurts someone else
- In kids, this might look like bragging about the highest grade, burping in someone’s
face or jumping ahead in line.
- Rudeness is usually spontaneous, unplanned, and inconsiderate – it is based on
thoughtlessness or poor manners, but not meant to actually hurt someone.
Mean – purposefully saying or doing something to hurt someone else once (or twice)
- Mean behavior often aims to hurt or depreciate someone.
Examples: “Are you seriously wearing that sweater again?”
“You’re so fat/ugly/stupid.”
Bullying – intentionally aggressive behavior, repeated over time, that involves an imbalance of power
4 Types of Bullying
1. Physical – person uses their body or an object to hurt another person
2. Verbal – someone uses spoken or written words to hurt another person’s feelings
3. Mental/Emotional – someone hurts another person’s feelings by making other people think badly
about them (i.e. rumors, gossip, excluding someone from an activity on purpose, etc.)
4. Cyber – someone uses a phone, computer or other electronic device as a way to say or do mean things to
someone else