Ask Scary Mommy: How Do I Teach My Kid The Difference Between Bullying & Someone Not Wanting To Be Their Friend?

Ask Scary Mommy is our weekly advice column wherein Scary Mommy editors and guest editors — fellow moms like you — will answer your burning questions. You can send all of your questions and conundrums about parenting, family, and relationships to askscarymommy@bdg.com (don’t worry — we’ll keep you anonymous!).

Dear Scary Mommy,

How do I teach my child the difference between bullying and someone just not wanting to be their friend? My kid is super extroverted and LOVES people and being around them, and gets their feelings supremely hurt every time someone sort of disengages with them, ignores them, or invalidates them. (Lots of coming home from school with, “I told them about this movie I liked and THEY WERE SO MEAN ABOUT IT” when really they just didn’t want to talk to them about it.) Now, they often say other kids were “bullying” them, and I explain that that’s not bullying — that sometimes people just don’t want to talk to you. Help?

— This Is A Lot

Dear This Is A Lot,

You’re right that bullying and someone just not feeling it are very different things. Bullying is persistent and targeted; this is just kids being, well, kids. We asked around for some answers from within the Scary Mommy community.

Here’s some (hopefully) helpful feedback for you to use.

“Middle school teacher here. One of the things I do with my students is I give a personality test that lets the kids identify themselves with a piece of fruit. Sounds silly, but works really well. We then talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each personality type, how to interact with each personality, and what to do when you have conflict.

“This then lets us talk about boundaries and how to respect them even when they’re different from your own. Kids already understand that, but sometimes they need to see how it fits in their own lives. You can roleplay and talk through what we’ll do next time the situation comes up. I have an anxious daughter myself, and I often ask her ‘What are you gonna do next time?’ so that she has a plan in place.” — reader Eleanor Nickras, via Facebook

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“Having young kids involves so much talking about social dynamics. I spend hours each week coaching my son on things I honestly never expected to have to explain to another person. As adults we can read a room and ascertain when someone just doesn’t share our interest in that crazy movie we watched over the weekend and can’t stop thinking about, but kids? I’m not sure what age that software update hits, but it hasn’t yet for my 5-year-old.

“We’ve had to get very clear with him in the past about what bullying is: repeated and targeted interactions that make you feel embarrassed, scared, or hurt.

“For all the times where ‘so-and-so was mean to me today,’ I find myself reiterating these three things a lot:

1. Read the room. Was the other kid busy with work or in the middle of playing something else when you brought up the movie? Did they look upset before you started talking to them? Maybe it just wasn’t a good time for them to talk to you.
2. Don’t take it personally. You are all kids learning how to be polite for the first time, so give your classmates grace.
3. If you just don’t mesh with someone, that’s OK! You’re still a good kid. They’re still a good kid. But the ones who get you and make you feel happy when you hang out? Those are the kids to sit with at lunch, play with at recess, and devote your free time to.

“Do these lessons magically fix his perspective? No! He comes home pretty much every day with a story about some new social interaction gone awry. But my hope is that if I can zoom out a little and repeat these lessons enough, navigating a class full of different people, and finding his people among them, will become second nature with time.”

— Katie McPherson, Associate Editor

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“Bullying is targeted and persistent. Someone can be unkind or unfriendly and it is just a one-off.

“One thing to teach our kids is how to listen to cues that another person is not interested. If a person is giving physical or verbal cues and they aren’t being respected then it can push that person into becoming ‘spikier’ to get their point across.

“When my kids were very young I used to refer to other children in public or at school as ‘friends.’ I realized I was setting my kids up for these interactions because they were going into it with the mindset that everyone would be friendly to them. I changed my language to more general terms (kids, classmates, peers, etc.). It helps set more realistic expectations for when they meet someone they don’t mesh well with.” — reader Gwen Riccio, via Facebook

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“This is when I, as a parent, have real talk with my kids. I tell them the actual definition of bullying, and that this is not that. This is just kids not wanting to talk about something and not knowing how to verbalize it. But also! The big takeaway from this for me is laying the groundwork that there will be people in life who are not your people, and maybe this is the first instance of that. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s a necessary one for life.” — Kate Auletta, Editor in Chief

Have a situation that you’re not sure how to resolve? Write Ask Scary Mommy to get answers from real parents who’ve been there.

If it’s not obvious by the end of this article, we are not doctors or lawyers. Please don’t interpret any of the above information as legal or medical advice — go see the professionals for that!