Bickering or bullying. Is there a difference?

[AtSea1979]

DD believes she is being bullied. She mentions the same handful of names and the mean things they have said. Her teacher said after lunch the children come to her with various bickering and we have a chat to resolve it, it's no big deal.
I've encouraged DD to tell the child they are wrong and to ignore them they are probably jealous etc. Is DD trying to stand up for herself getting constued as bickering? Or am I overreacting in thinking it's not being taken seriously?

No one?

How old is she? If she's consistently naming the same children, and giving examples of them being mean I'd definitely raise it with the school. My DS and his friends seem to LOVE telling tales though, so I listen but don't really take him on because it is genuine bickering.

How old are they?

It depends on their age and also what she's saying is happening.

Age 7-9 is a common time for bickering behaviour in the playground. My dd was forever coming home saying that x was being mean (sticking their tongue out) or (y was saying they weren't friends anymore (until the next day and they're best friends again) along with petty arguments over nothing serious.

In dd's case the teacher was brilliant at talking to the whole class about being nice to each other. It was usual petty bickering and disagreements caused by them learning to negotiate friendships and learning that you don't have to play together every day and agree on everything to be friends.

If it's this type of thing then I'd mention it to the teacher but tell dd to ignore it and play with someone else for a while. While your dd is saying x and y are being really mean to her it's also likely that x and y are complaining to their parents about the same behaviour from your dd and z.

The teacher will likely have seen this behaviour every year and with most of the children so should be better able to tell if it's actual bullying or just the usual bickering that happens between children.

children do bicker yes, other children get bullied. hard to know which with the incredibly scant information you have provided.

rather than trusting a bunch of strangers to whom you have fed a tiny bit of information, suggest you trust the teenager who was there at the time.

would it help if we got the teacher in question on here to post as an anonymous stranger with no information?

FFS!

teacher not teenager.

Bullying - several times on purpose
Bickering - arguing over trivial matters

Well it's several times on purpose over trivial matters that mean a lot to DD. She's 8 btw.

If she believes the "probably jealous" explanation and acts like she believes it then she'll be doing herself no good.

Ask the teacher for more details.

Those involved in it have admitted it to the teacher recently but then continued. I'm hopeful it getting taken more seriously now though I hope the teacher isn't just paying lip service then putting me down as one of those parents.