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What to say to a bully — and when to tell an adult

by

Harold Robert Meyer · The ADD Resource Center ·
Reviewed: July 15, 2026 — Published: July 18, 2026

A guide for a child of about ten. Read it through yourself first — the closing section speaks plainly about the darkest thing bullying can whisper to a child, and you’ll want to have read it before your child does. Then get the other adults in their life on the same page, so your child hears one message, not three. Then read it together: with them, not at them.

This article is written straight to a child. If you’re a parent or teacher, the research and the adult version are at the bottom.

Start here

Somebody at school is being mean to you. Not once — again and again. Maybe they call you a name. Maybe they knock your stuff over. Maybe they get everyone to leave you out.

You’ve probably been told “just ignore it.” That advice is not very good, because ignoring it is really hard and it doesn’t always work.

Here’s better advice. It comes in two parts: what to say, and when to tell an adult.

The most important thing on this whole page

This is not your fault.

Not because of how you talk. Not because of how you look. Not because you forget things or move a lot or get excited loudly. Bullying is about what they decided to do. It is never a report card on you.

Read that part again if you need to.

What bullying actually is

It’s not bullying every time someone is annoying or you have a fight. Bullying has three parts:

  1. It’s on purpose. They meant to hurt you.
  2. It happens over and over. Or you can tell it’s going to.
  3. It’s not a fair match. They’re bigger, or older, or more popular, or there are more of them.

If all three are true, that’s bullying, and it’s not something you should have to handle alone.

What to say: use the Boring Voice

Here’s the secret. A kid who bullies is hunting for a reaction. Tears. Yelling. A red face. That reaction is the prize. If they get it, they come back tomorrow for more.

So don’t hand them the prize. Use the Boring Voice — flat, calm, a little bored. Like you’re reading the lunch menu.

Words you can actually use

Pick two or three. Learn them by heart. That’s it — you don’t need twenty.

  • “Stop.”
  • “So?”
  • “Okay.” (then turn and go)
  • “That’s not funny.”
  • “I don’t like that. Stop it.”
  • “Whatever.” (walking away as you say it)
  • “You said that yesterday too.”

Short is strong. One or two words, said calm, then you leave. You don’t wait for them to answer. You don’t win the argument. You’re not trying to win the argument — you’re trying to be a boring target.

Words that do NOT work

  • Don’t insult them back. Now you’re two mean kids, and you might be the one who gets in trouble.
  • Don’t hit. Even when you want to. You could get hurt, and you could get suspended.
  • Don’t beg. “Please stop, please” tells them the button works.
  • Don’t explain yourself. You don’t owe them a reason for who you are.

How to stand

Your body talks before your mouth does.

  • Stand up tall. Shoulders back.
  • Look at their face. If looking in someone’s eyes feels bad, look at their forehead — it looks the same from the outside.
  • Keep your voice low and steady. Loud sounds scared.
  • Then walk toward people. Not away into an empty hallway — toward a group, toward a teacher, toward the lunch aides.

Practice it out loud at home

This is the step most kids skip, and it’s the one that actually works. Say your two lines out loud, in the Boring Voice, in front of a mirror or with a grown-up. Ten times. Feel silly. Do it anyway.

Because here’s the thing: in the real moment, your heart pounds and your brain goes blank. If your mouth has already said the words fifty times, your mouth will say them for you.

Walking away is not losing

Somebody probably told you that walking away means they win.

Nope. Walking away means you decided the conversation was over. You ended it. That’s not running — that’s you being the one in charge of your own feet.

When to tell an adult

Some kids wait way too long. Don’t be that kid.

Tell an adult RIGHT NOW — today, no waiting — if:

  • Someone hurt your body, or said they will
  • Someone touched you in a way that felt wrong
  • Someone threatened you, your family, or your pet
  • There’s a weapon — any weapon
  • It’s happening online or on your phone (screenshot it first, then show a grown-up)
  • Someone told you to hurt yourself
  • You are scared to go to school
  • It has kept happening even after you used your words

And tell an adult ANY time you want to.

You don’t have to hit some level of bad first. You don’t need proof. You don’t need to have “tried everything.” Feeling bad is enough of a reason.

“But isn’t that tattling?”

No. And this is a real difference, so learn it:

Tattling is trying to get someone in trouble.
Telling is trying to get someone out of trouble — or keep someone safe.

You are telling. Anyone who calls that tattling is either confused or hoping you’ll stay quiet.

How to tell an adult (5 steps)

1. Pick your person. Think of one right now, before you need them. A parent. A teacher. The school counselor. A coach. A grandparent. If your first person is busy or brushes you off — pick a second one.

2. Use the word. Say the actual word: bullying. Adults move faster when they hear it. “Some kids are being annoying” gets a shrug. “I’m being bullied” gets attention.

3. Give the facts. Adults need four things:

  • Who did it
  • What they did or said — the real words
  • Where and when
  • Who saw it

4. Say what you want. This one is powerful and almost nobody does it. Try: “I want it to stop, and I don’t want them to know I told.” A good adult will work with that.

5. Write it down. Keep a note on paper or your phone: the date, what happened, who saw. Every time. That list is the strongest thing you own. Adults believe a list.

A script you can borrow

“Ms. Rivera, can I talk to you privately? I’m being bullied. On Tuesday and again today, Jordan called me [the word] at recess and pushed my books off the table. Amara saw it. I’ve written down the other times. I want it to stop, and I’d rather Jordan not know I told you.”

That’s it. Read it. Change the names. It works.

If the first adult doesn’t help

Sometimes an adult says “just ignore it,” or “work it out,” or “boys will be boys.” That’s them being wrong. It doesn’t mean you were wrong to tell.

The rule is: tell the next one. And if that one doesn’t help, tell the next one after that. Teacher → counselor → principal → your parent. Keep going up until somebody actually does something.

Your job is not to fix it by yourself. Your job is to keep telling until it’s fixed. That’s not being a pest. That’s being smart.

If you have ADHD

You might get picked on more. That’s not a rumor — it’s true for a lot of kids with ADHD, and it’s not because anything is wrong with you. It’s because you’re easier to see. You react fast, and big, and right away. A kid who bullies notices that and treats you like a button they can press.

So the Boring Voice is extra useful for you — and extra hard. Your feelings show up loud and fast, and by the time you notice them, they’re already on your face.

Two things help:

  • Practice more. Not twice — twenty times, out loud, until the words come out without you thinking.
  • Buy two seconds. Breathe out slow. Count to two. Say your one word. Walk. Two seconds is all you need to stop yourself from handing them the prize.

And if you already blew up at them and feel embarrassed about it — that’s fine. That’s normal. It doesn’t mean you failed. Tell an adult anyway.

One last thing

If this has been going on a while, it can start whispering something ugly at you — that you’re the problem, or that it’d be easier if you just weren’t around.

That’s the bullying talking. It’s a liar. And that thought is the biggest possible reason to go find a grown-up today and say it out loud to them. Not next week. Today.

You are not the problem. You never were.

For the adult reading this

Key takeaway. Children need two scripts, not a lecture: a short, flat, rehearsed line for the peer, and a specific, factual, escalating script for the adult. Rehearsal — out loud, repeatedly — is what converts advice into behavior under stress.

Why this matters. Peer victimization is not a childhood rite of passage. It predicts anxiety, depression, academic decline, and self-harm, and the effects persist into adulthood. Children with ADHD are targeted at substantially higher rates, in part because their emotional reactivity delivers exactly the response the aggressor is seeking.

Key findings.

  • Roughly 56–82% of children with ADHD experience peer rejection — more than three times the ~15% rate among children without ADHD (Hoza et al., 2005; Solanto et al., 2009; range as summarized in Alacha & Bufferd, 2025).
  • Peer rejection accrues almost immediately in new groups — by the first day of contact among previously unacquainted children — and negative reputations resist revision even after the underlying behavior improves (Erhardt & Hinshaw, 1994; Hoza, 2007).
  • Children bullied by peers show long-term mental health outcomes comparable to — and on some measures worse than — children maltreated by adults (Lereya et al., 2015).
  • Emotional reactivity is a mechanism, not a character flaw: anger-based rejection sensitivity is elevated in children with ADHD and strengthens the link between ADHD symptoms and anxiety, while anxious rejection sensitivity does not (Alacha & Bufferd, 2025).
  • Federal guidance is explicit on two points: do not tell a child to fight back, and zero-tolerance and peer-mediation approaches don’t work for bullying, because bullying is not a conflict between equals (StopBullying.gov).

“The instinct is to tell a child to ignore it,” notes Harold Meyer. “But ‘ignore it’ is a strategy with no steps in it. Give a child two words and a rehearsal, and you’ve given them something their body can actually do at 11:40 on a Tuesday.”

What to do with this article: read it with your child, then rehearse the lines out loud together — you play the peer. Then rehearse the telling script, with you as the teacher. If the first school contact stalls, put the report in writing and move up the chain. The written log is the single most useful thing a family can maintain.

Bibliography

Alacha, H. F., & Bufferd, S. J. (2025). Peer functioning and anxiety risk in children with elevated attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 33(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/10634266251363946 (Open access. The 56–82% range appears in this paper’s review of the literature and is credited there to Hoza et al., 2005, and Solanto et al., 2009.)

Erhardt, D., & Hinshaw, S. P. (1994). Initial sociometric impressions of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and comparison boys: Predictions from social behaviors and from nonbehavioral variables. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 62(4), 833–842. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.62.4.833

Hoza, B. (2007). Peer functioning in children with ADHD. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 32(6), 655–663. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsm024 (Co-published as Ambulatory Pediatrics, 7(1 Suppl), 101–106. Cite the JPP DOI above; several reference lists in circulation pair the JPP pagination with the Ambulatory Pediatrics DOI.)

Hoza, B., Mrug, S., Gerdes, A. C., Hinshaw, S. P., Bukowski, W. M., Gold, J. A., Kraemer, H. C., Pelham, W. E., Wigal, T., & Arnold, L. E. (2005). What aspects of peer relationships are impaired in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73(3), 411–423. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.73.3.411

Lereya, S. T., Copeland, W. E., Costello, E. J., & Wolke, D. (2015). Adult mental health consequences of peer bullying and maltreatment in childhood: Two cohorts in two countries. The Lancet Psychiatry, 2(6), 524–531. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4580734/

Solanto, M. V., Pope-Boyd, S. A., Tryon, W. W., & Stepak, B. (2009). Social functioning in predominantly inattentive and combined subtypes of children with ADHD. Journal of Attention Disorders https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054708320403

StopBullying.gov. Support the kids involved. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.stopbullying.gov/prevention/support-kids-involved

StopBullying.gov. What kids can do. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.stopbullying.gov/kids/what-you-can-do

StopBullying.gov. Get help now. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.stopbullying.gov/resources/get-help-now

Resources

From The ADD Resource Center:

External:

The next step

Print the two script boxes — the peer lines and the telling script — and tape them inside your child’s binder. Then rehearse them tonight, out loud, for five minutes. If the bullying is ongoing and the school has stalled,

About the author

Harold Robert Meyer founded The ADD Resource Center in 1993 and has spent more than 30 years translating the lived experience of ADHD into practical guidance for individuals, families, and the professionals who serve them. He co-founded CHADD of New York in 1989, served on CHADD National’s board and executive committee, including as VP Finance, and was elected to lead the Institute for the Advancement of ADHD Coaching. He is an author and international speaker. [email protected]

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Disclaimers. Our content is intended for educational and informational purposes only and does not replace professional advice. While we strive for accuracy, mistakes or omissions may occur. Some content may be partially generated by artificial intelligence tools, which can lead to inaccuracies. Readers should verify the information themselves.

Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) is recognized and managed by many healthcare providers, particularly in ADHD treatment, but is not listed as a diagnosis in the DSM.

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