But... how do we do it? What one person perceives as hurtful is normal behavior to another. There simply is no quantitative scale of what is hurtful behavior and what is not, because it differs from person to person.
To those claiming "Our kids need to fight back", how's that other's parent going to respond when their child is beat up, for just saying the words "Pork Chop"? Not well, I can imagine. People are given nick names all the time, by their parents, by their peers. Because a minority of people take offense, can we now broadly classified this "normal" behavior as bullying?
Bullying is not right, but neither is it simple to classify or prevent.
But... how do we do it? What one person perceives as hurtful is normal behavior to another. There simply is no quantitative scale of what is hurtful behavior and what is not, because it differs from person to person.
To those claiming "Our kids need to fight back", how's that other's parent going to respond when their child is beat up, for just saying the words "Pork Chop"? Not well, I can imagine. People are given nick names all the time, by their parents, by their peers. Because a minority of people take offense, can we now broadly classified this "normal" behavior as bullying?
Bullying is not right, but neither is it simple to classify or prevent.