In Barbara Coloroso’s renowned book on bullying, The Bully, The Bullied and the Bystander, she makes a clear distinction between teasing and taunting.
Teasing is a benign act between friends not intended to cause hurt and done in a light-hearted way with both parties able to switch roles easily. Teasing is not bullying.
Taunting on the other hand is intended to cause harm, is one-sided, malicious in motive and involves cruel comments thinly veiled as jokes.
Teasing and Bullying: Teasing Is a Normal Part of Healthy Relationships
Teasing is a fun thing done between friends – with people you care about.
Because of this, teasing does not involve comments about the ‘big 5′ subjects often come up in verbal bullying: race, religion, gender, physical attributes and mental abilities.
That’s not to say it can’t go too far and end up hurting the person being teased – it sometimes will. The difference from taunting though is that when friends are teasing each other and one person inadvertently gets hurt, the person doing the teasing will usually notice they’ve hurt their friend and will cease the teasing and try to make up for it.
With taunting, hurting another person is the goal and the taunting often continues especially when it’s obvious the person has been hurt.
How to Tell the Difference Between Teasing and Taunting
With verbal bullying making up 70% of bullying incidents, the confusion between bullying and teasing comes up frequently. For your reading pleasure, we include below a table highlighting the differences between teasing and taunting:
| Teasing | Taunting | |
| Teaser and Teased Can Swap Roles Easily | Yes | No – taunting is one-sided |
| Motive | Innocent, light-hearted | Malicious, hurtful |
| When a Person Gets Hurt… | Stops and amends are made | Continues |
| Laughter is… | Shared between both people | Directed only at the target |
| Goal | Get both people to laugh | Demean and diminish the self-worth of the taunted. |
| Involves… | Benign, light-hearted jokes | Malicious, humiliating or bigoted comments |
| Constitutes… | A small part of the interaction between the children | The entire interaction and can lead to physical bullying |
With taunting, the person being taunted was targeted because it was known they wouldn’t strike back There is no compassion, no empathy. The person doing the taunting is not looking to make a new friend – they’re looking to hurt another child.
The Need to Teach the Difference Between Teasing and Taunting
Teaching children when teasing is okay and when it crosses a line is not easy. Instead, by teaching children the difference between teasing and taunting, children will be able to label and identify them and be able to better understand why one is acceptable and the other not.
