When Kids are Unkind: Understanding Social Cruelty Among Children

“Aggression is normal,” says Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls. “We feel aggression the way we feel hunger, tiredness and thirst. We cannot make it go away.”

“Watch Animal Planet,” she continues. “Every animal has aggressive impulses. It’s biological.”

Psychologist Michael Thompson, Ph.D., agrees. “There will always be bullying and teasing, because children naturally discover that they have power over one another,” says the co-author of Best Friends, Worst Enemies and Mom, They’re Teasing Me: Helping Your Child Solve Social Problems.

But Thompson, like Simmons and others who’ve researched cruelty among children, says the issue is how that anger, power and competitiveness get expressed.

A former teacher and an active school consultant,Thompson distinguishes between healthy competitiveness and aggressiveness.