What really is bullying?

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Let's say a parent wants a kid to finish their homework. Simple request any parent has the right to make. The parent says, " you need to get your homework finished so you can turn it in tomorrow and not have it be a zero." That is not bullying. It is just simply stating facts. However, it is ultimately up to the person doing the homework to actually get it done. They have to take some responsibility in this, too. If the person doing the homework is reluctant, the parent can get the homework out, look at it and find out from the person why they don't want to do it. Maybe they don't understand it? Maybe something happened at school and they are stressed out and cannot concentrate? They just need to unwind. Finding out this information is not bullying, it is helping. Bullying is when the parent yells, "Do that homework or you will get your butt whipped. Do you want to be stupid for the rest of your life?" See the difference? Which one of these responses from the parent is really going to get the best results from the person doing the homework?

Bullying is insulting, unreasonable, often threats of violence occur. Anyone who threatens to commit bodily harm to another for not doing what they demand is a bully. That includes all parents who threaten to hit, then hit, their kids. It might not be what parents want to hear, but it is what it is. People need to ask themselves if they want to be talked to that way? Do they think if they were threatened with bodily harm when they didn't want to do something, would it make them want to do it? Of course, they would do it to escape repercussions, but wouldn't they rather have the rational approach?

After all, criminals who get thrown in jail often start out by communicating,
"give me all your money or I'll blow your head off."

Think of better ways to resolve conflicts and quit making excuses for bullying behavior.

Well no its not the best to label something as bullying unless one can be sure.......if someone says or does something with the intention of harrasing the other person that is bullying. Misunderstandings can happen but usually those can be addressed with communication. Like if someone says something to someone and they take it as bullying then they can talk about it and come to the conclusion it was a mis-understanding.

I agree with this! The intent does need to be there. If there is no intent it may well just be a miscommunication or perhaps the person does realise that what they are doing is hurting someone's feelings.

True bullying is always intentional and it is a deliberate attempt to hurt the person being bullied in one way or another.

I have experienced a lot of bullying over the years at school, at work (on one occasion) and online. I am very cautious about accusing people of bullying and I won't usually do so until enough time has passed for me to fully evaluate the situation. I am a very forgiving person and I hold no grudges against someone who did not mean to intentionally hurt me...if it was unintentional I usually forget the matter and am not hurt by it.

Bullies are a bit harder to forgive as I always fail to understand why they would want to hurt anyone, however, once I am away from the situation and the bullying is no longer happening I will eventually let it go and move on with my life. I don't see why I should miss out on my life because of bullying so it is best to leave it in the past where it belongs!

I do not like carrying around negative hateful feelings...by nature I am a gentle loving soul, so once I am over the hurt (during which time I can appear a little defensive and depressed), I go back to being more like my true self. The down side is I tend to be somewhat gullible if I am not careful, so I sometimes have to watch out for that. Despite the years of bullying I have been through, and despite my high level of academic ability, I still always manage to end up being too trusting and naive when it comes to people. I tend to reset to assuming that just because I do not like hurting anyone all others are the same also. Hence every time I have been bullied I am once again surprised by it.

Yes I can be a bit wary of people whilst I am still in pain over past bullying that I have not yet healed from in case the bullying starts up again in the future, but I mostly just hope it will not.

Last edited by bumble on 28 Jan 2012, 12:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not making excuses. However you are dead wrong that spanking is bullying. Abuse is bullying, but spanking is not abuse. If the child is doing something dangerous and refuses to stop, the parent cannot just sit there and try to come up with some rainbow and unicorn farts statement or bring ice cream. They have to act. I have had to physically pick my child up and remove them from a situation. That is not bullying. If the child hits at me, he gets a smack on the bottom. That is not bullying.

If an older child hits a younger child, that younger child cannot hit back, so a spanking is in order. By "spanking" I do not mean beating them black and blue. I mean either a hand or belt applied to the behind three or four times. Or a hickory switch to the legs a few times. Not an actual beating.

This isn't a debate on spanking, and I will say this though. I have four kids. Each child has a different personality and relates to the parent a different way. I had one boy that just refused to do anything you told him to do and the only way you could get through to him was with the hand applied to the behind. Another son would require occasional spanking but not nearly as much as his brother. One girl got a few spankings but learned very fast that when I told her "stop that right now or I'm gonna go get a hickory", I meant it. Another girl always minded and only got one light swat on her behind, ever.

Kids by their very nature, get into things. Things that are dangerous or can hurt them. They can hurt others without having intent to hurt. Yes, parents should do everything they can to reduce the chances of them encountering anything like that until they are old enough to use some form of self discipline, but that isn't always possible. Mild physical pain does cause a child to remember what the parent said. It also causes them to rethink disobedience about the situation. (My kids are all NT btw)

An example is once when I was about 5, I developed a fascination with flushing things down the toilet. Didn't matter what it was. Washcloths, keys, pages from books, Barbie clothes, I didn't care. My grandparents paid a fortune in plumber bills. I was told and told not to do it. I still did it. The worst that would happen was they would take something away or yell at me. They had already explained to me why I shouldn't do it. I liked watching stuff get flushed that much. Finally, when I flushed my grandfathers car keys, my grandmother had had it! She grabbed a hickory in one hand, my arm in another and held me there while she striped my legs with that switch! We did that whole going in a circle thing that happens. With her yelling a word for every lick. I did not flush anything else down the toilet except for what was supposed to be flushed. Other things were tried, only a spanking worked. No decent parent likes to hit their kids, and doesn't spank unless it's the only option.

ETA; let me ask you this. What if I was invited to your house and I flushed stuff down your toilet over and over, causing it to stop up. Say I wouldn't quit it. You would ask me to leave. Say I wouldn't. You have two options. Either hit me, or call the cops on me. If I don't do what the cops say, I'm gonna get put on the ground fast. Is that bullying by the cops? What about situations where someone is consistantly noncompliant? And their behavior is dangerous. Should they be threatened with physical violence, or should physical means be used to remove them from the situation? Isn't THAT bullying too?

I am not a fan of using spanking myself but then I was lucky with my son. He was very quick to pick up and understand language (as was I as a child), therefore I found that if he did something wrong simply explaining to him why he should no do something (in a way that he could understand) was sufficient.

I remember one occasion where he was with friends and, as a group, they broke some of the next door neighbours garden lamps. On hearing about this I sat my son down and explained to him why he should not break other peoples property and pointed out that should one of his favourite toys be damaged by someone he would feel very upset about it (which he agreed with). He did not repeat the bad behaviour again and I had no more complaints about him.

Mostly the schools, neighbours and family friends always said what a lovely polite and well behaved little fellow he was.

He was the sweetest most sensitive and affectionate little boy though. Telling him off etc would have just upset the wee mite, so I preferred a more gentle approach in his case. He was very very bright...and prone to using big words which everyone blamed me for lolololol.

People would say "where on earth does he learn big words like that from at his age" and everyone would look at me and say "his mom" lol

He was a lot like me as a child...big vocabulary, very sensitive and highly intelligent.

Last edited by bumble on 28 Jan 2012, 12:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.

That is an example of tailoring the approach to the child, which I did with all four of mine when they were little. I've got sweet compliant kids, and also hellions. The approach to each type is different. My youngest girl would have understood easily, like your son. So I would have just talked to her and taken her over to apologize. Thats all that would need to be done. One of my boys would have just gone out and broken more, and gotten their behind tore up for it.

We disagree, that is all. I disapprove of all hitting unless it is in self defense. Yes, they need to act, but hitting is not the only action. The problem with spanking is it teaches the wrong message and it causes the kids a lot of anxiety so it disrupts the thinking processes they need to engage in to make appropriate decisions and regulate behavior. Too much spanking can cause disorders such as PTSD. There are much better ways of communicating with others. Adults don't go around treating adults that way and there's a reason they don't. It's because it does not help to improve society. So why do people think it's the only alternative with children? Just because they are little and society can get away with hitting them because people rationalize it? Spanking is hitting.
If someone gets bit by a little dog, would they bite the little dog back? It's the same sort of thing. We all know that dogs can bite and it's often because they are in situations where they are afraid or anxious. They could be angry over something. Do people agree it's okay to hit a dog in this situation, or do they try to teach the dog not to bite by using appropriate rehabilitation techniques? So, why not do the same thing for small children since they are young and are not capable of thinking like adults? I long for the day when hitting a child will have the same reaction as hitting a pet and will be thought of as abuse.

There are better ways to handle it. Belts are definitely abusive. You should never, ever, hit anyone with a belt, ever. It's something that shouldn't be done. Teaching someone not to hit others by hitting them is counterproductive and a complete contradiction. You are just teaching them, yes, it is okay to hit in order to solve conflicts so they are going to continue hitting as a way to solve them because that is what they have been shown. You can stop the behavior without hitting. One good way is to take away privileges because in real life, that is what happens when someone does something wrong. They are limited in some way. That goes for careers right down to crimes. If you do something wrong on the job, you get reprimanded which means you might not make as much money or get promoted. You can even get fired. People get put in jail if they break the law. Why not teach them that early? Doing something wrong means facing a limitation of some sort, like not getting to do something they want to do.


I saw some young children yesterday who, apparently, receive spankings from the parents, based on what the parents were saying to them. The kids would not listen to the parents, were afraid to go near them. The mother kept having to say, "it's okay. Come here. I am not going to spank you." Those kids were scared to go near her, they were nervous and they never did what the parents asked them to. They were running around, and appeared very nervous. Kids I know that get spanked are all like this. I have never seen it improve the behavior long term.

I think it's bad to spank one kid and not the other. It can the make the kid who is receiving the spankings behavior much worse because they feel like the black sheep of the family. The attitude can develop that they do nothing but wrong so why should they try to do anything but wrong and they can start resenting the kids in the family who do not get spanked. It sends a really bad message to the kid getting the spankings.


Of course they do, it's part of their developmental phases and they should not be punished for this. You have to start when they are toddlers by physically removing them from the danger. By the time they reach a certain age, they should know better based on younger experience. By then you can do the most good just by talking to them.


Just put a lock on the bathroom door so the child cannot get in by themselves. Bathrooms are not places where young children should be playing, anyway. It's too dangerous. Too many hazards lurk inside and you cannot expect a child under the age of six or seven to really understand. When they are in there they need supervision, all the stuff they could hurt themselves with should be out of their reach.

Exactly how many kids do you have? How many have you raised? If the answer is zero, then you have no place to tell me how to raise mine!

When our first child was born, both my husband and myself were all against spanking, against yelling, against sending him to be without supper, ever ever never in his life would we do that.

We were wrong.

Get confronted with the realities of parenting. You'll lose your rainbows and unicorn farts real soon, son.

I have to live in a society filled with angry people who got spanked as kids so yes, it affects everyone so yes, I have a right to have an opinion on it.
There are plenty of parents who do not spank their kids and face the challenge of raising kids without hitting them, so jumping on the bandwagon is no excuse for doing it.

Oh, and the most fundamental reason I disagree with spanking and hitting? Because I got got spanked and hit and it did me absolutely no good and made me much worse. So, there's all those years of experience with being the victim of it. I also have a cousin who was routinely hit with a belt who had to go through counseling when older.

Well just for the record my parents thought spanking was a good idea, and there where a couple instances where I would agree.....like if I was about to do something that would cause harm to me and they needed to warn my quickly and the best way was a swat on the butt. But most of the time I feel it was excessive, like my mom would end up just doing it because she was mad at us so all it made me and my siblings remember is 'when mom's mad she's totally irrational and even dangerous.'

So I think spanking can be appropriate in some situations, but to enforce 'you're bad' is not a reason I agree with because that is how it was with me and I feel if anything it just made me feel worse about myself like 'oh I made a mistake I deserve to be hit.' but that's just my experience.

Right. There are two sides to the issue. There can be problems both with labeling bullying based on whether someone feels bullied, and there can be problems with labeling it solely based on the intention behind the act.

A - There are people who may be overly sensitive who need to learn to let things go a little better.

B - Bullying can happen whether there is intent in the initial act, or not.

Some people do need to be taught how to let things go.

Some don't realize how what they do is making others feel.

Both are problems. Neither can be solved without dialog.

I have seen the comments that reporting bullying or informing the bully of how you feel can "fan the flames," and I agree, that's true. That CAN happen. But what good does it do anyone to bury hurt feelings when one feels wounded? It's a pretty well established fact that doing so isn't healthy. While it IS true that TRUE bullies (those that are intentional in their bullying) may gain satisfaction from learning they've hurt you, and even do it more, it isn't enough to simply make sure they know what they are doing. It's important for their behavior to be notice by more than just them and their victims. It's also important that others who become aware of it, speak up and let them know it's not acceptable behavior. That's in regard to intentional bullying. If enough negative feedback heads their way from the community as a whole, they'll be more likely to stop doing it. True intentional bullying is about attention mongering. It's about gaining approval for what the bully may consider funny or amusing behavior. If they clearly aren't getting positive reinforcement for their bullying, it stops serving its purpose for the bully.

Sometimes though, bullying happens (though it can be debatable whether this should be considered bullying), UNintentionally. I think we all say and do things that hurt other's feelings unintentionally on occasion. How would we know we've hurt someone's feelings though, if they never told us or anyone else? This is a different situation from initially intentional bullying. Some though, even after being informed that what they are doing, continue to do it, refusing to accept any responsibility for other people's feelings. At that point, it does become intentional. But I'm talking about the kind of behavior that would be looked down upon by the general community. Not a teacher stating facts ("If you don't do your work, you will fail," is not bullying, but yelling "Do your damned work or I'm going to give you F's and you'll end up being a failure you loser!" IS bullying.)

I'm not going to sit here and draw fine lines defining it. Every situation has to be considered on its own.

True, sometimes we feel as parents (and educators) as though what we're doing is for the other person's own good. Sometimes that's true. Sometimes we can go overboard and though our INTENTIONS are for the other person's good, our actual actions and attitude behind them are not.

What it boils down to is people listening to each other. No one can deny what someone else feels, whether or not the feeling is justified. Feelings are what they are. If someone feels hurt, and says so, it would be arrogent to simply deny that fact. We may very well feel that there is nothing we can do about how other's feel, but it's not true. No, we can't CONTROL how others feel and react to what we do, but we CAN control how WE act.

If someone is telling ME that I've hurt their feelings by something I did or said, what good does it do to simply tell them, "Well, you don't really have any good reason to feel that way."? All that does is shut down communication. I'm effectively telling them their feelings are invalid. Who would want to discuss the matter further with me if that's how I react to them?

YES! YES! YES! It IS true that I or anyone else can feel hurt only because we're being overly sensitive. And, yes, it is possible for anyone to abuse the cry of "BULLY!" as a means of getting out of something. That kind of abuse IMHO is a form of manipulation, which is closely related to bullying.

In cases where a single act has been committed, by someone who has never done anything to me in the past, it is best to just brush it off. If the behavior is repeated though, and becomes a clear pattern, it isn't going to stop by ignoring it.

Bullying will probably never stop as a problem, but each instance of bullying can be stopped if people do the right thing and LISTEN to each other. Even problems of crying "Bully!" when it isn't justified can be solved just by people talking and listening to each other. But it takes more than just the "bully" and the "victim" talking to each other. It takes EVERYONE talking it over and listening to each other.

I've been on both sides of this issue at one time or another. Iv'e been bullied, and been accused of bullying. I've learned that sometimes I was just being too sensitive and could have just brushed off the problem. I've also learned that when the bullying is real, and truly damaging, ignoring it did more harm than addressing it, not just with the bully, but with authority figures as well. Does that always work? No, but it's better than doing nothing. On the other side of the coin, I have been told by people that something I said or did was unacceptable bullying. In most cases, I had no idea until I was told. In some, I understood it. In others, even after an explanation I still didn't see it, and still don't to this day. In those former cases I've chosen to react in two different ways, whichever seems to work better. Usually I start by trying to explain that no harm was intended. Most of the time that's all it takes. Sometimes that doesn't work. If I'm still convinced that what I did shouldn't have been cause for concern, I then do what I can from that point on to avoid the other person because either they are overly sensitive to me, or there is just a personality conflict there that neither of us seems to be able to overcome.

I don't think any two people on this earth will ever agree about every individual situation in which bullying is either occurring for real or perceived to be occurring. Due to the fact that this is what I believe, it should be fairly obvious why I also feel that offering a flat and simply outlined answer to "What really qualifies as bullying," and expecting anyone else to completely agree with it, is an exercise in futility. There are too many variables, and too many of us evaluating them all for there to be any firm agreement.

I do believe in most cases bullying problems can be solved by just the two people involved (if there are only two). When more are involved, or the two can't agree, others should become involved. The more the better. If that doesn't happen, which is pretty much the way bullying was handled for the most part when I was young, bullying (whether it is real bullying, or acts unjustly perceived or and/or labeled as bullying) remains a serious problem. If there is one thing that seems to me to be quite clear, it is that the single most serious problem with bullying over the years has been people NOT getting involved.

So, someone should endure hitting just because they are simply not quick to understand? I find that fundamentally flawed.

I agree. Also I don't understand the argument that spanking or hitting is necessary to stop a child from doing something dangerous. Physically holding them back from it, yes, for instance it would be necessary to restrain a child who is running out into the street. But hitting or spanking them for it is not going to make them understand why they shouldn't run into the street.

^THIS. Good intentions are not a pass to use "whatever behavior you find necessary".

Well, in this instance you are not quick to understand and I would find it horrible for someone to hit you because of that. It's a discussion. You don't hit over ideas (unless you are a redneck or a terrorist) if you have to hit, you do so over actions. In the realm of spanking, its over actions that can either hurt the child worse than a spanking would, hurt another child, or badly destroy property.

I am so very sorry you got spanked and were upset over it. I got spanked too and it was not my favorite thing either! But I learned. Maybe you are further down on the spectrum than me, I don't know, and if you are, there is NO SHAME in that at all. I wouldn't advocate spanking kids further down on the spectrum. I'm talking about NT kids here. That's all I've had contact with.

And what if you're in a situation where the majority of people are in on the bullying, or at least tolerate it? It would be nice if it only ever got as bad as having a couple people pick on me, reporting it to a teacher and having it taken care of.......but it was more like sometimes the teachers where in on it or I was too overwhelmed to explain the situation correctly so they would believe the people bullying me over me because they where better at explaining it. So for that to work the community the bullying occurs in has to actually give the bully negative feedback not positive re-enforcement for enforcing the social norms by picking on the outcast.