Are we doing ourselves, and our children a disservice by labeling every childhood conflict as “bullying”?
In a recent Op-Ed post on The New York Times, Emily Bazelon argues that we are overusing the term “bullying,” and that there is very real confusion about what the correct definition of bullying even is. According to Bazelon, both of these problems serve to reduce the words impact when it is actually used correctly, and also that, “All the misdiagnosis of bullying is making the real but limited problem seem impossible to solve.” She says,
… [W]e know that “bullying” isn’t the same as garden-variety teasing or a two-way conflict. The word is being overused — expanding, accordionlike, to encompass both appalling violence or harassment and a few mean words. State laws don’t help: a wave of recent anti-bullying legislation includes at least 10 different definitions, sowing confusion among parents and educators.
Bullying is a particular form of harmful aggression, linked to real psychological damage, both short and long term. There are concrete strategies that can succeed in addressing it — and they all begin with shifting the social norm so that bullying moves from being shrugged off to being treated as unacceptable. But we can’t do that if we believe, and tell our children, that it’s everywhere.
The definition of bullying adopted by psychologists is physical or verbal abuse, repeated over time, and involving a power imbalance. In other words, it’s about one person with more social status lording it over another person, over and over again, to make him miserable.
But when every bad thing that happens to children gets called bullying, we end up with misleading narratives that obscure other distinct forms of harm.
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Do you agree?
Are we overusing the term “bullying”? If so, do you think the overuse has the potential to desensitize society to genuine instances of bullying?
Do you think that by calling “every bad thing that happens” to a child bullying, we are creating a problem that is impossible to solve?
Read the full article here.
“Bullying is linked to psychological damage, short and long term…” Getting shoved to the ground and scraping my elbow while called a racist slur by my friend’s cousin at age 11 can either stick with me or I let it roll off my back…but I can still see the keloid scar on my right elbow no matter how small and pale now…. Being groped and teased with ethnic curses everyday on a summer camp bus by nasty boys can be hard to ignore….until one day, your friends come to your rescue and stay by your side… Being manipulated and coerced… Read more »
Take a very recent example of the News Anchor who was berated by a viewer because he felt she was overweight.
Mean and Nasty , yes it was.
Bullying, no it wasn’t. SHE actually had all the power not the person doing the berating, in fact, on could make the argument that her response was closer to bullying than what he did to her.
Except we don’t label “every childhood conflict” as bullying. As someone who just came out of the public school system within this past year, I can tell you that getting encounters that DIDN’T fit textbook “bullying” encounters (basically physical beatings, cyberbullying, or spreading rumors behind the victim’s back), but that still involved power imbalances and intentional emotional disturbance for the less-powerful kid involved, labeled as “bullying” and not “peer conflict” is often really hard. Especially when the “victim” is neurodivergent or has any form of special needs. Frankly, asking “is labeling EVERY CHILDHOOD CONFLICT AS BULLYING detrimental” seems to be… Read more »
Actually no, I wasn’t “fishing” for anything and I’m sorry if you saw it that way. A big part of the problem, as I see it, is that there are many different ways the term “bullying” is being defined especially where children and conflict are involved and because of that the term itself loses the power to impact the way it should.