Tattling

If you teach/taught your kid not to be a "tattle-tale" or a "snitch," how do you teach them that they can come to you if someone does something really bad to him/her? [hitting, molesting, ect]

Or do you teach them that they can tell you anything, no matter how small?

DH is always telling DS "stop snitching" and "no one likes a tattle-tale" and while I agree that DS doesn't have to tell me that his brother grabbed his toy, there are certain things I would WANT him to snitch about.

How do you teach the difference?

We tell my 7 year old its not necessary to tell us every time something small happens, like someone not sharing, etc. just to work it out on his own. But we tell him that if someone is hitting him, any kind of abuse, etc to tell us right away. He seems to undstand what situations warrant telling us about and which do not.

Hmm, I don't really know. I would reinforce to always tell when someone is being hurt or hurting someone else.

I want my son to tell me or his teacher no matter how small.

I try to tell dd that if someone is hurting her or someone else it's appropriate to tell. I also hate tattling but I was traumatized from
One of my teachers for tattling so I hate to even call it that. I try to call it "reporting".

We emphasize what we believe to be the lesser evil and encourage her to tell

I teach my kids that there is a difference between tattling and reporting.

Tattling is telling me something for the sole purpose of getting someone else in trouble.

Reporting is when you are telling me something because you are truly upset at what someone else has done because it hurt you or someone else or could cause hurt in some way.

<blockquote><b>Quoting Emily Dickinson:</b>" I teach my kids that there is a difference between tattling and reporting. Tattling is telling me something ... [snip!] ... because you are truly upset at what someone else has done because it hurt you or someone else or could cause hurt in some way."</blockquote>




Me too!