Put these incidents on index cards and then sort them with students using a chart with three columns, labeled: Tell An Adult, Handle it Yourself, & Let it Go. Brainstorm common events that students report to you (someone writes the wrong answer on her paper, students call each other names, someone pushes a classmate down, etc.). Help students know when to report incidents to you.Today we’ll begin talking about how you’ll know when to tell.” But I want you to know that there will be many times when I’ll want you to tell me about behaviors that you’re noticing. “I know that some teachers and maybe even your families have told you not to tattle. You might begin by exploring students’ prior understanding of tattling, followed by naming your expectations: Proactively explain your expectations about tattling.Here are a few strategies you can adapt to fit the needs of your class: Help children develop independent problem-solving skills and resiliency. Good strategies for managing tattling will:Įncourage children to report significant events-those that threaten someone’s emotional or physical safety.Īssure students that if they’re uncertain whether an event is significant, adults want them to speak up. If we decide not to ban tattling, then we need to offer children strategies that will help them know what to do when they feel uncomfortable about behavior they’ve seen or experienced. Tattling may be their only problem-solving strategy. Limited problem-solving skills: Adults often tell students to handle problems themselves, but students may lack the skills to do so.With their regular reporting and need for constant affirmation, these children can frequently get under their teachers’ skin! Some children want us to notice them or to acknowledge their efforts at following the rules. When we respond with a disapproving “Remember-no tattling,” or a pointed question such as, “Do I need to know that?” they become confused. Need for information: Some children may be testing the limits or trying to figure out whether you’ll enforce rules.We need to fully embrace this truth rather than just pay lip service to it. Legitimate concerns: Students may have good reasons for concern about others’ behavior and its effects on them and their friends.There are many different reasons why students “tattle.” Here are the most common ones:
Your kid tattletale how to#
Rather than tattling bans, then, we need to develop a more nuanced view of tattling, along with ways to help children understand when and how to report problems. Often they’re simply following the “no tattling” rule they learned at home or in school at a young age. We are often surprised by children’s silence in these cases, but we shouldn’t be.
But the witnessing children told no one, and their silence emboldened those experimenting with bullying to go even further. Frequently we see reports of school officials who uncover bullying and learn that many students knew of prior incidents involving the same children. Such inadvertent but powerful messages clearly work against the culture of emotional and physical safety we want to establish for our children. If I tell when someone does something bad, I’m being bad, too. It leads to a “culture of silence” in our schools and sends children disheartening and confusing messages:Īdults say they care, but they won’t listen to my problems. While perhaps well-intentioned, discouraging tattling creates more problems than it solves. Indeed, some schools enact tattling bans, and many well-meaning teachers ask me how to “enforce” such bans. I know from teaching young children myself how challenging it can be to face a seemingly endless parade of students reporting things to you as you’re trying to teach.įiguring out how to deal with what we commonly call “tattling” can take a significant amount of time and energy and, as a result, teachers are often tempted to tell children to keep problems to themselves. “Jaime isn’t lining up in the right place.” ApCategories: Discipline / Reminding, Redirecting, and Reinforcing Language / Teacher Language
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