Why I Let my Son Play with the Mean Kid

I fully believe that bullying exists and that it is a real problem in some cases.

But I also believe that the word "bully" is sometimes overused to describe a lot of age-appropriate squabbles that we can let our kids resolve on their own.

Like any mom, it's hard for me to hang back and let my child battle it out with another, but if I jump in and solve every social conflict he has, he might expect me to solve all of those problems and quite frankly, I don't want him living in my basement.

I love him enough to let him learn how to handle conflict.

I heard every detail of this saga during his first grade school year, and I was confident that I didn't need to step in.

I heard the name of a specific boy several times, and he was described as "the mean kid" by more than one child in the class.

As a former mean kid, I can say with 100% certainty that a child is mean for a reason. There is always something else going on, and the helplessness about a situation often turns to anger.

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To finish reading the full story, visit The Huffington Post: Parents website: http://huff.to/1V9PMLg.