"Nothing was bullying 25 years ago. It was kids being kids. Not saying it was right, but parents thought it was part of growing up," said Kevin Quinn, president of the National Association of School Resource Officers. "Now we see a lot of parents trying to generalize what bullying is -- any time kids do something to each other, let's call it bullying and deal with it that way."
At the Arizona high school where he works, they get more reports of bullying than they once did, but they also spend time researching whether they're really onetime scrapes, minor offenses, criminal activities that should be handled by police or acts of bullying that need to be reported to administration.
"The last thing we want to do is start turning every single kid in the school into a suspect," he said. "You've got to train teachers, staff, get information to parents. The definition (of bullying) is only as good as the people that know it."
'Not a word we're afraid to use'
Susan Guess now knows the definition by heart, for reasons she never could have imagined.
Just a few years ago, neither Guess nor her daughter, Morgan, thought they needed to know much about bullying. She was a fixture in her daughter's classroom. They were close, always talking. If there was ever a problem, she was sure Morgan would tell her.
But when Morgan entered third grade, Guess began to notice a few changes -- little things, like how Morgan walked past her friends to spend time with one girl, or how that girl always seemed to lead Morgan around. Morgan mentioned nothing, and at first, Guess didn't ask. When she finally did, Morgan was ready to talk.
The girl was pinching her and pulling her hair, Morgan said. She might elbow her in the back one day, and hold her hand the next. She wouldn't let her play with her other friends. If she complained, Morgan feared it would get worse.
The girl wanted to be her friend, Morgan explained, but she didn't know how.
Meanwhile, Morgan had grown anxious and depressed. She began to have stomach spasms, and to struggle more academically. The realization made Guess felt a little ill, too.
"Our schools spent time talking about the issue, but she did not know -- and I had not equipped her -- with the skills she needed to stand up for herself," Guess said, recalling those hard months two years ago.
Guess worked with the school to separate the girls, and the physical bullying mostly stopped. Guess would still sometimes find the child trying to block Morgan -- "a power play" -- or inserting herself among Morgan's friends.
Eventually, the girl changed schools.
Guess realized, though, that just as her daughter struggled to tell an adult what was happening, parents might not realize that their children were being bullied, or might worry they'd be seen as a troublemaker.
The mother and daughter launched the Guess Anti-Bullying Foundation to help educate their western Kentucky community about what bullying looks like, and how to create kinder, more empathetic schools. It can be difficult: Schools can't label a bully with the "Scarlet B," she said, but it was hard to feel any sensitivity toward the girl who'd hurt her daughter.
She's grateful for the education she's received on bullying, but doesn't believe the word is overused. You have to say it, she said, to help children understand which relationships are healthy, which ones aren't, and how to help a person in need.
"A child is suffering, and we spend so much time saying, 'This is bullying, this isn't bullying,' " Guess said. "If we've gained anything, I hope we're better people, more sensitive to our interactions with other people."
At age 10, Morgan is now doing wonderfully, Guess said. She's stronger academically, less shy than before and has been honored for her work to help people understand bullying. Bully, Guess said, "is not a word we're afraid to use anymore."
Last month, as Guess walked through the hallway of her daughter's school, she noticed a handwritten poster hanging on the wall.
"What is a bully?" it said in a child's writing, a small heart atop the "I."
"A bully is a bigger or stronger person that hurts or frightens a smaller or weaker person on purpose," it answered in rainbow letters, "over and over again."
Guess snapped a photo, and posted it on her anti-bullying foundation's Facebook page: "Every single act of education," she wrote,"makes a difference."