How to explain to your child the difference between ‘not nice’ and bullying

What is the difference between someone not being nice and a bully?

Even as an adult it can be hard to differentiate so how do we explain it to our children? Parenting safety site Code 9 Parent recently shared a post that explains perfectly how to tell if someone is being 'not nice', mean or a bully. The post talks about separating each of these terms into different categories. It describes someone who is 'not nice' as someone who says or does something unintentionally hurtful. More importantly it specifies that they only say the hurtful thing once. Someone who is mean on the other hand is someone who intentionally says something hurtful to another person, but again, just the once. The post goes on to describe a bully as someone who repeatedly says or does hurtful things to a person. The key word for any child is repeatedly. If your child finds that another child is harassing them on a continuous basis then that constitutes bullying and they need to tell an adult. As parents we never want to think that our child may become a victim of bullying but helping them to identify what bullying is will help you to ensure that it can be stopped quickly.