by Barb Hopkins

Created on: March 19, 2009   Last Updated: May 03, 2009

The line between harmless fun and bullying is easily crossed as everybody has a different perspective on each situation. What one person perceives as a playful tease or harmless joke, another reacts to with humiliation and anger.

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines bullying as, "to treat abusively or to affect by means of force or behavior." Bullying has many forms. Some of these forms include threats, social exclusion, malicious gossip, intimidation including staring, physical assault, stealing, graffiti, taunting, and cyber-bullying. Bullies want to hurt their victims; it is about power, aggression, and extreme negative behavior. What one person perceives as a playful tease or harmless joke, another reacts to with humiliation and anger.

Bullying is wrong. Bullying should not be tolerated. It can do serious and sometimes irreparable damages to its victims. We should never condone or allow bullying from our children or any adults in our lives.

The main difference between harmless teasing lies within the emotion it provokes in the intended victim as well as the person initiating the tease. If neither person feels hurt or humiliated by a playful tease or joke, then the exchange is harmless fun. Harmless teasing doesn't malign a person's religion, physical appearance and ethnicity, or their mental capacity. If a person receives a sense of power and thrill by teasing another, the line between harmless teasing and bullying has been crossed.

The line between playful teasing and hurtful taunting or bullying is often crossed by a school age child caught in the power struggles of the playground hierarchy. Gone are the days when a child can call a classmate a "dooty-head" or yell that someone has "cooties." Through our own fears and insecurities, we have made our children overly sensitive to even the most harmless playground teasing. Even as adults, we are quick to point a finger and cry "bully!"

We should allow our children some room to express their anger and frustration with their peers in constructive ways, even when the method is a tease or snide but harmless remark. For example, two eight-year old girls decide that they do not want to play with another classmate today because they are jealous of the other girl's new backpack. The girls give the third girl the silent treatment on the playground and her feelings are hurt.

Is this bullying? By the technical definition it is, but realistically is it? These types of social exclusions happen every day on every playground.

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