Why Labeling Ordinary Unkindness Is Making Our Daughters Relationally Fragile

Back-to-school season means early morning carpool lines, making sure backpacks don’t get left behind, and, for many parents, that sinking feeling when a daughter comes home and says someone was mean to her. The instinct is to reach for the “bullying” label. It’s the word that gets a school’s attention, the word that makes a mother’s protective instincts flare, the word we’ve been trained to listen for since our own school days.

But not every hurtful moment in a middle school hallway is bullying, and treating every unkindness as such can leave our daughters ill-prepared to navigate the important and valuable relationships in front of them.