Obnoxious teasing and bullying of children are common in neighborhoods and in schools.  About 75 percent of children in the United States get bullied before they reach adulthood.  When I was a child in the 1950s, people thought that kids should deal with such harassment themselves because it would toughen them up.  However, few children have the social and physical skills needed to discourage bullies.  For example, when I entered kindergarten, one girl made fun of me because I was very thin.  She would say, “You’re so skinny that I can see right through you.”  She hurt my feelings every day.  After school, I would go home and cry.  I did not know what to do, and I was very upset.