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Mom, she touched me again. Mom, he is teasing me. Mom, she took my toy. Mom, he is bothering me. Mom, he changed the channel. Mom, she took a snack. All day long.
Young kids are still learning how to problem solve and they are still in the mode of thinking that they need an adult to solve every problem. This summer I am on a mission to teach my kids the difference between telling me something versus tattling on someone. As it turns out my teacher friends tell me that this is a school initiative as well, so we are getting a head start.
As I began to dig around for a game plan on what would work best, I came across this book to help explain.
Don’t Squeal Unless It’s a Big Deal: A Tale of Tattletales is a book about how to decide when you are telling or tattling.
I discovered a few charts explaining the difference between telling and tattling. I created one of my own using picmonkey! I printed it out and hung it on my fridge to serve as a reminder. It has worked well because it is a visual that clearly communicates the difference between telling and tattling.
We also did some role playing and talking through different situations to help them understand telling versus tattling. A popular scenario in our house:”Mom, she took my doll without asking and now she won’t give it back.” Tattling
“Mom, she took my doll without asking, and I asked her nicely two times to return it, and she ran away.” Telling
Since taking the steps on my mission the amount of tattling in our house has lessened. I can see one of my kids start to say something, look at the chart, roll their eyes and walk away. We will tackle the eye rolling another day 😉 . Mission accomplished- Taking it one day at a time!
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