In your efforts to curb tattling, it’s important to let kids know that it remains important to speak up when something sets off alarm bells - whether it’s bullying behavior or someone is in danger. Not so much for young kids, as the studies have shown. Teach the Difference Between Tattling and Tellingįor us adults, there’s a pretty clear line between tattling and telling an adult about something serious. Print a FREE anti-bullying poster for your classroom. ![]() Create an anchor chart that can be referenced when kids are struggling with what to do. Talk about common issues that happen in the classroom that typically prompt kids to tattle, and ask your students what else they could do instead of telling you. Practice brainstorming solutions with your students. Once kids have analyzed a situation and decided it’s a problem they can solve it themselves, they need the tools to do so! Teaching conflict resolution as part of your social-emotional learning lessons helps arm kids with the know-how they need to handle conflict on their own without having to run to you to tell you all about how Johnny just took Jamil’s pencil. This isn’t something students know automatically, so it does require working with your students. Teaching students how to analyze a situation and come up with alternate ways to solve a problem is a great way to help them decide whether or not they need to run to tell you what happened, if they can deal with the problem themselves, or if it’s something they can simply let go. Is it any wonder that tattling typically drops significantly by the time kids hit 8 or 9? The older kids thought tattling was the appropriate response only to serious infractions - think stealing or cheating. When they asked 8-year-olds, the answer changed. In fact, when psychologists asked 6- and 7-year-olds what to do in reaction to vignettes of children’s behavior, the kids thought tattling was the right way to deal with all wrong-doings. Insightful, but how do you stop all that tattling in your classroom? How to Stop Tattling in the Classroom Work on Problem-Solvingįor many young kids, tattling is their go-to option because they know something is wrong but they don’t know how to deal with it. The reactions of peers can also play a role in the reduction of tattling - one study of teenage boys, for example, showed that those who were still tattling at this age tended not to be well-liked by classmates. But they do run to adults to tell on them!īy the time kids hit 8 or 9, however, gossip typically takes the place of tattling. Another interesting insight? The study found that toddlers don’t gossip - they don’t sit around swapping negative stories about a preschool pal. This time he found that tattling represented an intermediate step in social development somewhere between getting physical and figuring out interpersonal problem-solving. ![]() One of the researchers in that 2010 study from Belfast moved on to Bath University (also in the UK) and in 2014 published another study on tattletales as the behavior relates to aggression. For example, they noted that tattling is performed more frequently by dominant children, and it correlates with teacher reports of relational aggression. Those same researchers from Belfast have some insights into why students tattle. Jones, Quentin just stuck his tongue out.” We’ve put together this how-to guide for teachers to nip tattling in the bud and instill problem-solving skills in your students. The teachers on the Teach Starter team have all dealt with their fair share of being interrupted mid-lesson with students shouting “Mrs. ![]() The researchers 2010 study concluded that tattling actually made up the majority of talk about peers’ behavior to third parties! When researchers from the Queen’s University Belfast in the UK spent 66 hours observing preschoolers over the course of a month, they documented 354 instances of tattling. There’s scientific proof that tattling is rampant in kids in the primary grades. And yet, here you are, trying to figure out how to stop tattle-telling in the classroom so you can just get back to what you signed up for: Teaching. If anyone had told you how much time you’d spend dealing with tattling in the classroom, you probably wouldn’t have believed them.
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