Digital Smarts - Rude vs. Bullying – What’s the Difference?
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What is the difference between rude behavior and bullying? Signe Whitson, a therapist and author of several booklets on bullying, says it is important to draw a distinction. If we improperly classify rudeness and mean behavior as bullying — whether simply in conversation or to bring attention to short-term discomfort — we all run the risk of becoming desensitized to the word and this actual life-and-death issue among young people will lose its urgency. In her definition, being mean involves “purposefully saying or doing something to hurt someone once (or maybe twice).” Bullying, on the other hand, is “intentionally aggressive behavior, repeated over time, that involves an imbalance of power.... Kids who bully say or do something intentionally hurtful to others and they keep doing it, with no sense of regret or remorse — even when targets of bullying show or express their hurt or tell the aggressors to stop.”