This afternoon, as it is Anti-Bullying week (hence Dare to be Different Day), I led a worship on the difference between what is rude, what is mean, and what is bullying. We discussed these as:
Rude - someone doing or saying something hurtful, accidentally (without realising it might upset someone)
Mean - someone doing or saying something hurtful, but intentionally
Bullying - someone doing or saying something hurtful, again and again - repeatedly upsetting or hurting someone.
Then we worked in our worship groups to sort some scenarios into the three categories.
I was so proud of our children. It was clear that many of them remember discussions on these three terms before and could verbalise the difference. We do sometimes have children say they have been bullied in school, but usually when we unpick it, it has been either rude or mean behaviour instead, and I think our children have a good understanding of that. We are lucky - we have such lovely children at St Martin's!
Mrs Rennison