Tattling

[marciebaby]

My 10 year old daughter is always "telling on" my 8 year old son. Granted, my 8 year old is usually doing something wrong, but it gets sooooooooooo tiresome to hear my daughter complaining about him all the time.

I've asked my 10 year old to take it up with her brother first, but he ignores her until an adult gets involved. I want to correct him when he's doing something wrong, because he shouldn't be able to get away with murder, but the tattling just doesn't seem right either...

How do you handle this in your family?

 

[Robinsegg]

It sounds like you have 2 issues going on here . . .

1. Tattling

2. Your son has too much time unsupervised by an adult.

1. In my house, I ask some questions: Is anybody being hurt? Is he hurting someone else's property? If the answer is "no", it's tattling.

I then tell the child to try to work it out on his/her own. Then, I follow up to make sure it's resolved.

2. If your son is often doing something wrong, he may need more adult supervision. If that means he sits on the floor where you're doing things because you can't trust him, that's what it means. If that means you have to forego getting something else done while you sit in the vicinity of the kids . . . or take your work to where they are . . . that's what it means.

Rachel

 

[Stan53]

What Rachel said.
However, I do come down hard on the one telling the tattles. This is a form of self-righteousness that I find most uncomfortable.

 

[HeKnowsMyName]

Oh my! I can so relate to this! DD (9) is forever getting DS (2.5) in trouble because he hits. Now we are trying to teach him NOT to hit, but she makes it hard when she 'plays' with him and playfully hits him. He doesn't understand that his hitting is not playing KWIM? We've discussed this with her over and over but it doesn't sink in.

We've just recently noticed that she starts whining (yes, you read that right) and crying like she's dying even when he just touches her. She is a MAJOR drama queen. I don't know the answer for you but I just wanted you to know that I'm right there with you.

 

[moonkitty]

I tell my students at school that I only listen to tattles at 1pm on saturdays. I tell my own children I only listen to tattles at noon on Tuesdays. Then I really just refuse to respond to the tattle.

Of course it has backfired when the kids are out of school. LOL. But by now they have out-grown the worse of it.

 

[homeofmew]

Sounds like a issue of one kid trying to be better than the other.
Sometimes kids think it's a competition of "who's the better kid".
Maybe she feels like she gets in trouble and wants to even it out when her brother does something bad.

It also depends on how bad it is too.