Try to teach a 3-year-old to say, "I'm rubber, you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you."

It's a pretty complex retort for children at an age when they're considered average if they can string five words together into a sentence.

Chances are, they're going to end up on the sticky side of the insult.

But isn't that really the way it is? We tell our kids — tell ourselves, even — that sticks and stones will break our bones but words will never hurt us. But words do hurt.

Don't we all have embarrassing moments that will stick with us forever? Bullying on the playground. Frankness from a friend. Teasing from a sibling who knows how to get at your vulnerabilities.

Physical injuries fade, but sometimes the words just rattle around your head forever.

Bloomberg.com just reported on a study that showed that more than four out of every 10 college students surveyed had experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse, either before they entered college or while they were co-eds.

Much of that abuse was "emotional."

Where's the line on emotional abuse?

You can show off a fractured arm or blackened eye, but how do you reveal a broken heart or bruised psyche? How can you tell whether you've just been knocked down a peg or if your ego has taken a beating that it will be hard to recover from?

Is having your feelings hurt the same as being abused?

It's disturbing to think that more than 40 percent of college students feel they have been abused in any way. They might be going through life stronger as survivors, but they also might have plummeting self-esteem or pent-up rage they'll end up unleashing on someone else.

It's much easier to see things clearly when there's physical contact involved. You can teach your kids what's appropriate touching and what's not. There are laws written that define those guidelines.

Emotional abuse is something different. We teach our kids that they have to have tough skins. They have to be able to tolerate some teasing. They have to learn not to take derogatory statements to heart. We want them to know that they're better than anything anyone could say about them, but how do we really equip them to have that strong a sense of self?

Are we just setting them up to start absorbing all the pain, instead of setting up boundaries to determine when hurt feelings have become more than that?

How do we teach someone to recognize that they've ended up in a relationship where they feel threatened, even though no hand has been raised in anger?

It's troubling to think that so many children hit adulthood feeling that someone has not just hurt them, but abused them ... and abused them in ways that parents might not have prepared them for.

Maybe we should stop teaching them to be the rubber and help them figure out what to do when they end up being the glue.

When she's not being a reporter, Treena Shapiro is busy with her real job, raising a son and daughter. Check out her blog at www.HonoluluAdvertiser.com/Blogs