"Maybe he's sad," he told me. "Or jealous of my awesome dinosaur roar." My 8-year-old and I were laying on his bed after lights-out a few weeks ago, discussing his day. Lately he's been dealing with some mild teasing at school. A couple of classmates have been telling him he's annoying, locking him out of recess games, and mocking his first name. It's nothing that we feel rises to the level of bullying, but rather the low-level needling that virtually all schoolchildren endure at some point.  "That's what my friend said. That if someone teases you, it's because they're jealous," he added, and then demonstrated a velociraptor sound that fell somewhere between gargling alligator and demon-possessed lion. If he wants to think other children only wish they could sound that vicious , who am I to argue?  But how do you explain to your kids that sometimes people are just mean? The unfortunate truth is, it's a tough world out there