Hello Parents,

From the 16 years experience we have in educating children, and from working closely with teachers in our community I can tell you the number one educator in your child’s life is you, the parents. While we teach your child the physical techniques and the social and emotional strength to defend themselves, that isn’t enough to make them safer or stop bullying. We have a responsibility to also educate you and our community, so together we can put a stop to this.

We are approached on a weekly, if not daily by folks sharing stories of behaviour towards their children that is unsettling to say the least, and some that are just unspeakably cruel. As parents we only see a small percentage of what happens in our children’s daily social interactions at school and in the neighbourhood, and need to be careful to fully understand what is really happening in their social interactions. Simply put, we need the ability to put these interactions into proper context, and here’s why.....Some behaviours require immediate and swift intervention by adults or teachers, and some behaviour may be rude or mean, but not every behaviour, or act, can be termed as bullying. There are other forms of behaviour that can easily be misidentified and reported as bullying.

Here are a few behaviours common on the playground, in the classroom, and neighbourhood you may recognize, along with their definitions that often times are misidentified as bullying.

Rudeness: Typically there is no intent to hurt with rudeness. Unintentionally saying or doing something that hurts someone else. Very common especially in the early stages of development. From a child’s perspective rudeness might look more like burping in someone's face, jumping ahead in line, bragging about achieving the highest grade or even throwing a crushed up pile of leaves in someone's face. On their own, any of these behaviours could appear as elements of bullying, but when looked at in context, incidents of rudeness are usually spontaneous, unplanned inconsideration, based on thoughtlessness, poor manners or narcissism.

Mean: Purposefully saying or doing something to hurt someone once (or maybe twice max). The main distinction between "rude" and "mean" behaviour has to do with intention. While rudeness is often unintentional, mean behaviour very much aims to hurt or depreciate someone. Kids are mean to each other when they criticize clothing, appearance, intelligence, coolness or just about anything else they can find to denigrate. Meanness also sounds like words spoken in anger ie; impulsive cruelty that is often regretted in short order. Very often, mean behaviour in kids is motivated by an inability to control their emotions, angry feelings and/or the misguided goal of propping themselves up in comparison to the person they are putting down.

Commonly, meanness in kids sounds an awful lot like:

• "You are so fat/ugly/stupid."

• "I hate you!"

• "Are you seriously wearing that sweater again? Didn't you just wear it, like, last week? Get a life."

Make no mistake; mean behaviour can wound deeply, and adults can make a huge difference in the lives of young people when they hold kids accountable for being mean. Yet, meanness is different from bullying in important ways that should be understood and differentiated when it comes to intervention.

Bullying: Intentional aggressive behaviour, repeated over time, that involves an imbalance of power. (Usually with the intention to subjugate). Experts agree that bullying entails three key elements: an intent to harm, a power imbalance and repeated acts or threats of aggressive behaviour. Saying or do something intentionally hurtful to others repeatedly over time, with no sense of regret or remorse, with the intention to control or subjugate, even when their targets show/ express their hurt or tell the aggressors to stop is classic Bullying. Being able to properly distinguish between behaviour that is rude, behaviour that is mean and behaviour that is characteristic of bullying is an important first step.

Bullying may be physical, verbal, and relational and/or carried out via technology:

Physical aggression: This was once the gold standard of bullying. Remember the neighbourhood bully or school yard bully that would target and prey on certain kids. This kind of bullying is becoming increasingly rare but includes hitting, punching, kicking, spitting, tripping, hair pulling, slamming a child into a locker and a range of other behaviours that involve any physical aggression. This type of behaviour is quite common in the early years of development due to social immaturity, but unless done repeatedly and with intention to control may not be considered bullying? Verbal aggression: This is the teasing or prodding our parents used to advise us to "just ignore." We now know that despite the old adage, "Sticks and stones" Words and threats can, indeed, hurt and can even cause profound, lasting harm. This is why building mental toughness in our children through social and emotional learning is so important to our child's well being.

Relational aggression: This is a form of bullying in which kids use their friendship, or the threat of taking their friendship away to hurt someone. Social exclusion, shunning, hazing, and rumour spreading are all forms of this pervasive type of bullying that can be especially beguiling and crushing to kids.

Cyber bullying: Cyber bullying is a specific form of bullying that involves technology. This once was something more pertaining to teens and adults, however is now becoming more prevalent at earlier ages( preteens). It is the "Willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices." Notably, the likelihood of repeated harm is especially high with cyber bullying because electronic messages can be accessed by multiple parties, resulting in repeated exposure and repeated harm.

Ok……So, why is it so important to make the distinction between rude, mean and bullying?

In the last few years, parents and educators have collectively paid attention to the issue of bullying like never before, and thousands of adults and educators have been trained in important strategies to keep kids safe and dignified in schools and communities. These are significant achievements.

At the same time, however, continuous references to bullying are creating a bit of a "little boy who cried wolf" phenomena, and is actually creating a "boy who cried wolf" phenomenon. In other words, if kids and parents improperly classify rudeness and mean behaviour as bullying, we run the risk of becoming so sick and tired of hearing the word that this actual life­ and­ death issue among young people loses its urgency.

As we have heard too often in the news, a child's future may depend on an adult's ability to discern between rudeness at the bus stop and life­ altering bullying.

It is important to distinguish between rude, mean and bullying so that teachers, school administrators, police, youth workers, parents and kids all know what to pay attention to, and when to intervene.

Together we can make a difference in our schools and our community!!

Have an amazing week

Sensei

Keiko Karate – “Actually we do make Ninjas and Superheroes here………………we turn kids into Ninjas and we turn their parents into their superheroes