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tattling – how do you deal with it?
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My oldest likes to cheerfully tell me when his 2yo twin brothers are getting into something they shouldn’t (which they do alot!). Usually it is something I need to deal with but that only seems to fuel his flame to tattle more – it is pretty clear he gets excited when he can be the police and get them in trouble. How do you all deal with tattling? I don’t want to ignore what my little ones are doing just because it was found out via the tattle line, but I would like to nix this bad habit of my eldest. Thoughts? Help? Please?
When my kids were little and tried to tattle on each other, I would try to use it as an opportunity to reinforce helping each other in a spirit of love. So when the tattler told me what was going on, I would ask the tattler, “And did you remind her in a kind voice what she should do instead?” If yes, I would thank the child and go deal with it. If no, I would encourage that child to go help the other one in that way. And usually I would accompany her to supervise the conversation and encourage peacemaking.
Usually I could tell the spirit of the tattler by the tone of voice she used. My goal was to cultivate a spirit of genuine concern for the sibling’s well being.
Nerakr, this has happened many a time at my house. What I started doing, once I caught on, was punishing the older one. My 2 boys are 4 years apart and my oldest still tries to do this occasionally. I examine the situation and if I feel the 9 year old put his 5 year old brother up to it, I will punish him instead and make him clean up any mess.
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