BULLY – The most bullied word in the English language?

This week is anti-bullying week.  It’s a week of campaigning and awareness raising by anti-bullying organisations.  Most adults understand the seriousness of bullying.  Some of us will have experienced bullying behaviour as a child, others will have experienced it in the workplace or online.  Sadly, many of us will also know the heartache of having a child experience the pain of being bullied.  Even if we have no personal experience, we will have read horrendous reports about children and teenagers who have committed suicide because they were being bullied at school or on social media.  We know it has considerable consequences, we know it is criminal and we expect our schools, workplaces and police force to take it seriously and act effectively to combat it.

We’re all aware that bullying is a serious problem, but what makes the issue harder for schools and the authorities to face is that the word ‘bully’ itself has taken on a life of its own and is being habitually overused to the point that it's meaning is lost.  We now find normal social behaviour such as mean comment, a difference of opinion, a full-blown argument, the end of a friendship and even good old fashioned ‘micky-taking’ is being called ‘bullying’.  Whilst none of these things are acceptable or nice, they do not in any way, shape or form constitute ‘bullying’.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines bullying as follows: “a person who uses strength or influence to harm or intimidate those who are weaker.”  Stompoutbullying.org elaborates by describing a bully as “someone who is habitually cruel or overbearing to others on a continual basis.”  Psychologists agree and confirm, “bullying is physical or verbal abuse that occurs repeatedly and involves a power imbalance: a person using social power or physical strength to dominate another.”

When I was young a “bully” was perfectly encapsulated in the form of Grange Hill character ‘Gripper Stebson’.  He was mean, he was horrible to everybody and he was violent.  (If you’re significantly under the age of 40 you probably won’t have a clue who I’m talking about).  Thankfully, I didn’t encounter anybody like him when I was young, but I know people who have had their own versions of ‘Gripper’ in their lives and I can imagine how bone-achingly horrible it is to have to endure.

Gripper.  Just look at him.  He was horrible.

At school from the late 1970s through to the 1990s I think we were more successful at classifying bad behaviour as per the correct definitions.  There was bullying, then there was nasty, but nonetheless normal childhood interaction which was usually called fighting, arguing and teasing.  The former had to be tackled promptly by the appropriate authorities, but when it comes to the kind of mean behaviour which is unpleasant and which nobody likes, then you had to learn how to stand up for yourself.  I worry today that children won’t be able to develop a thick skin they need to function in this world if every time they experience something they don’t like, an adult labels it bullying and steps in.  

How is it that on the one hand we can hear harrowing reports of teen suicides and depression, yet on the other hand the same word describes toddlers pushing and shoving each other, children having a fall out in the playground or even former adult friends no longer getting along?

A few months back I was at a soft play centre when a member of staff asked my friend to keep an eye on her three year old child as he was bullying other children.  How can somebody consider a playground shove from a pre-schooler an act of bullying?  Are three year olds even capable of bullying?  Are they yet aware that their actions have consequences?  Absolutely not, so the very notion that a three year old could be a bully is entirely absurd.  Although my friend's little boy needed to be told, 'no' and that he wasn't to hit or push, it is very damaging to label pre-schoolers who haven't sufficiently developed empathy as bullies.

Next we have a lovely friend of mine who was accused of being a bully by a grown man in a discussion group on a social media site.  This friend is one of the most polite, well-mannered, eloquent and reasonable ladies I know, yet she was called a bully for her non-threatening, well-worded disagreement over this man’s point of view.  Today, it would seem, the term bully can be used simply if you don’t like somebody’s opinion and you don’t agree with what they’ve said.  It’s a ‘catch-all’ accusation and the second somebody cries wolf that they’re being bullied, the overly-sensitive general public go into sympathy and protection mode.  They rarely investigate whether an act of bullying has actually taken place and even if they do it’s rarer still that they have the correct definition of the word in order to scrutinise the situation appropriately.

My six year old son has already experienced the odd scuffle at school.  He’s endured a bit of teasing (to my shame I once sent him to school in very cool, but nonetheless hot pink underpants!); he’s had his belongings taken and he’s been physically pulled about, slapped and scratched.  Each time I’ve spoken to his teachers calmly and reasonably and each time, she’s been able to rectify the problem without me ever having to use the word ‘bullying’.  This is because, as a parent, I have some understanding of what constitutes normal child behaviour (particularly amongst boys), whilst also knowing the correct definition of the word ‘bully’.

Even more worryingly, some people are deliberately misusing the word ‘bully’ as a means to discredit somebody they don’t like.   They know bullying is a hot issue and the word itself is provocative, therefore they can easily create the drama and the attention they crave by maliciously labelling people they have fallen out with (and who have previously stood up to them) as ‘bullies’.  It’s called ‘projection’ by psychologists (i.e. when somebody projects the guilt of their own bad deeds onto others) and this extraordinary behaviour has been witnessed recently by me and some of my friends.  A police friend of mine agrees that the wolf-cry of ‘I am being bullied’ makes it more difficult to distinguish actual acts of bullying and harassment which is a very real problem and a teacher friend of mine agrees that she is inundated with children reporting they are being bullied, when in actuality they’ve experienced little more than a snub in a playground game.

For the record, bullying is far more than a snide comment, it’s more than having the mickey taken out of you, it's more than some of your friends 'leaving you out' and it’s more than an innuendo-fuelled tweet.   Toddlers aren’t bullies if they push over a baby at soft play, children aren’t bullies if they don’t want to play with your child, strangers on the internet aren’t bullies if they don’t share your opinion and former friends aren’t bullying you if they’ve made an off-colour joke at your expense.  When we continue to use ‘bully’ out of context we are in danger of telling everyone around us that the entire world is being bullied and that everyone is a victim.

One researcher into this problem, Professor Elizabeth Englander, has said at CNN.com, “By calling everything bullying, we’re actually failing to recognize the seriousness of the problem.  It’s one of the unfortunate side effects of doing an awareness campaign … everyone wants to adopt it.”  Englander continues, “the label ‘bullying’ is really incendiary.  It ratchets everything up emotionally.  It makes it hard to really address, rationally, what the best course of action is.  The people hurt most by the overuse of ‘bullying’ are young people most desperate for a solution – those in the midst of very real traumatic instances of bullying, students whose pain might be overlooked in a crush of reported cases.  It’s the unrelenting cruelty and callous nature of (actual) bullying which is watered down when we include every social slight or quarrel under the bullying banner.”

So, during this anti-bullying week, let’s start taking bullying seriously by correctly using the word!