We are hurting children with our fearful obsession to keep them safe

WERE you bullied at school? I don’t think I was nor do I remember being much of a bully. But it really depends what you mean, doesn’t it?

Once upon a time, the reasonable definition of bullying meant big, strong kids physically picking on the weaker ones. But, these days, there has been a certain amount of mission creep, encouraged — it has to be said — by campaigners disguised as charity workers. Bullies, we are encouraged to believe, are everywhere.

So when the increasingly commonly accepted definition of bullying has been widened from violence to include being teased, called names, having your stuff messed with, or even just being ignored by other kids, who could look back on their childhood and say that they weren’t bullied, or that they never bullied somebody else?