Crossing the Line “What is wrong with you? Can’t you take a JOKE? ” Early childhood is when a child’s first interactions with other people in the community take place. As early as the ages 3-5, he would start to learn the importance of getting along with others, cooperating and understanding himself. Unfortunately, with growing up, the child also experiences his first taste of the cruelty that the world offers. Teasing is a very complicated phenomenon and it’s very important for us to know the difference between positive and negative forms of teasing. Although it would be so much easier to just throw good things with the bad, it is rarely wise. Teasing can be a positive and helpful force in the social lives of children, yet in an attempt to put an end to school violence, it is being thrown out of schools together with more negative form of social interaction, bullying. Teasing is defined as the act of laughing at and criticizing some in a friendly and pleasant or cruel and hostile way. It is often part of growing up — almost every child experiences it. But it isn 't always as innocent as it looks like. Words have the ability to hurt other people’s feelings. Teasing would then start to bare its claws and thus, bullying begins where there is a conscious intent to hurt another child. Small children take a lot of displeasure in being teased. Teasing between kids often occurs on the playground and at times, may lead to physical encounter or boisterous fighting. Even these