Many years ago, I read the work of school psychologist Izzy Kalman, who (at the time) was the only critic of the anti-bullying movement. He helped me realize that the number one reason we cannot solve the bully problem, the social problem, or the conflict problem is the word bully itself.

I know that sounds strange at first, because it feels like a word that helps us name what is happening. But in my experience, the moment “bully” enters the conversation, logic leaves the room. The word is not a diagnosis. It is not a measurable psychological category. It is a judgment label, and once you apply it to a child, you have already decided who the villain is.

That is why so many conversations between parents and schools go nowhere. The label shortcuts curiosity. It ends questions. It replaces specificity with emotion. It creates a phantom.

A Word That Does Not Translate

Here is something most people do not know. There is no clean equivalent for “bully” across languages. Many cultures have borrowed the English word and dropped it into their sentences. Then everyone has to stop and ask, “What is a bully?” And that question triggers a whole chain of training programs, posters, policies, assemblies, and slogans that depend on a single assumption: that “bully” is a real, stable category that can be identified the way you identify a fever.

But human conflict existed long before this word became fashionable. Kids have always been mean. People have always clashed. The question is not whether cruelty exists. The question is whether this label actually helps us handle it.

I do not think it does.

What Happens When Schools Build an Industry Around a Label

If you remove the word “bully,” a huge portion of the anti-bullying industry collapses overnight. At its peak, the movement became a billion-dollar ecosystem of curricula, consultants, assemblies, policies, and mandated trainings. Every school has seen the posters:

• “Bullies aren’t cool.”

• “No bully zone.”

• “Kick bullies out of school.”

• “Bullies are not allowed.”

Now try a simple experiment. Replace the word “bully” on those posters with “jerk.”

“This is a no jerk zone.”
“Jerks aren’t cool.”
“No jerks allowed.”

Suddenly it sounds ridiculous, because you can feel what is going on. We are not describing a clinical reality. We are branding a person. We are creating a social category that makes it easier to hate a child.

And I hate that, because it trains adults and students to treat certain kids as disposable.

Labeling a Child “Bully” Is Its Own Form of Name Calling

I tell principals, counselors, and teachers this all the time: do not let a parent get away with calling another child a bully.

Why?

Because we teach kids not to name call. We tell them not to use degrading labels. Then the adults turn around and do the same thing, except we call it “advocacy.”

If you would not want someone to slap a harsh label on your child, do not slap one on someone else’s child.

Instead of, “He is a bully,” we should demand the same thing a good police officer would demand when someone makes a claim.

What happened?

Not - what is the label?
Not - what is your conclusion?
What happened?

Specificity is where solutions begin.

The Legal Definition Creates Confusion We Cannot Fix

Here is where things get even messier. Many bullying laws include a formal definition that sounds precise, but falls apart the moment you try to apply it.

The common research-based definition often includes three requirements:

1. Intent to cause harm

2. An imbalance of power

3. Repeated behavior over time

Those sound official. They sound scientific. But in real school life, they are not usable.

Let me ask the most practical question:
How do you measure “power imbalance” in a way that is objective?

If the law requires evidence of an imbalance of psychological power, what instrument are we using to measure it? What assessment tool tells you, without guesswork, which child has more power in the relationship?

Administrators do not have an answer, because there is no reliable tool that gives you that kind of clarity in a hallway conflict. Most of the time you are getting competing stories, missing context, and emotional interpretations. You are left with a judgment call.

And judgment calls are exactly what courtrooms love to attack.

A defense attorney can argue, “There is no evidence of a power imbalance.” Another attorney can argue the opposite. Now the issue is not what is true, but who can win the argument. That is how legal systems work. It becomes adversarial storytelling.

So we built policies on a concept we cannot prove.

Then we add the “repeated over time” requirement, and that creates another problem. Some kids experience a single devastating event that crushes them. Exclusion from a major social moment can wound deeply. Does that not count because it happened once?

You can see the trap. The definition forces schools to fit human suffering into a checklist.

The Real Fuel Behind Most “Bullying” Reports

When you meet a kid who has been labeled a bully and you ask, “Why did you say that?” you will often hear something like this:

“Because he said this to me!”

That matters.

It reveals that many conflicts are not a simple story of one aggressor and one innocent victim. Often you are dealing with two offended people, both feeling wronged, both justifying their behavior, both certain the other person is the problem.

This is why the label “bully” is so tempting. It lets me place all responsibility outside myself. It lets me feel pure. It lets me avoid the harder work of resilience.

In many cases, what drives the conflict is offendability. Once offense is in the room, everyone can feel victimized. Everyone starts building a case. Everyone reaches for a label that makes their pain feel legitimate.

And the more we teach kids that they are powerless in the face of offense, the weaker they become.

The Most Beautiful Irony in the Whole Conversation

The word “bully” did not start as a word of hatred.

It was coined in the mid-16th century and came from a Middle Dutch term that meant something like “loved one.” It was originally a term of endearment. In other words, it began with affection, not accusation.

That is stunning to me.

Because when you look at the modern problem we call bullying, the lasting solution is not found in labeling enemies. It is found in learning how to respond to them.

Jesus was speaking to this long before we created posters and policies.

Love your enemy.
Do good to those who hate you.

That is not sentimental advice. That is emotional strength. That is resilience with benevolence.

Love is patient. Love is kind. Patience is strength under pressure. Kindness is choosing good when you could choose revenge. Those are not weak traits. They are powerful traits, and they are exactly what kids need if they are going to handle harsh realities without falling apart.

A Better Goal for Mental Health

Mental health, in its simplest sense, includes the ability to adjust well to a harsh reality.

If the harsh reality is that someone does not like you, that someone is rude, that someone excludes you, that someone says something cutting, then the question becomes:

Can you adjust well?

If you can, you grow stronger. You stay stable. You learn emotional control. You keep your identity intact.

If you cannot, then every enemy becomes a crisis. Every offense becomes a collapse. Your world shrinks, your anxiety grows, and your mental health degrades over time.

That is why this matters. I am not trying to excuse cruelty. I am trying to remove the label that keeps us from teaching strength.

Kids will deal with difficult people their entire lives. School is one of the first training grounds. We can either teach them to label and hate, or we can teach them to respond with resilience and goodness.

That is the path forward.

If you want the next time your child faces conflict to become a growth moment instead of a meltdown, start here: stop using labels and start demanding specifics. Then teach the skills that help a kid face enemies without losing themselves.