Tattletales

I think I've mentioned this before, but when I was pregnant with Parker, I signed up with this free service online that emailed you information about your pregnancy...ie what was happening when and why. You know, like, "Your Baby at 28 weeks." It came every week and was pretty interesting.

For the last six years, I've been getting these emails. No longer once a week, they come about once a month and are titled like this: "Your 5 year, 7 month old." I usually just delete them, but every so often, I look at them and almost every time, they are spot on.

For example, this months is "Your five and half year old: Tattletales."

I had recently posted to my twin club about how Parker is coming to tell us everything that his sister's do, from total fine things like talking or looking at him to annoying things like teasing him that bug him to dangerous things like getting stuck on a tree. Everything. I hear, "uh, Mom...Elizabeth is...." or "Miranda did..." every five minutes. While I am pleased that he isn't hitting them as a response to something that bugs him, it was getting pretty damn annoying.

Here was the BabyCenter's advice:

"It can be hard for a young child to discern what's tattle-worthy and what's not. So give your child the benefit of the doubt before correcting her. Let her know that she should always let you know if she sees something dangerous.

If you jump right in and reprimand the child who's doing wrong, however, and the problem is more annoying than unsafe, you risk reinforcing the tattling. What's more, if you didn't see the problem happen in the first place, it's hard to be sure what happened. All you have is one child's word against the other.

Instead of rushing in, ask questions that encourage problem-solving. "What happened? What do you think should be done about it?" Or "How can we solve this problem?" Encourage your child to work it out on her own when possible."

Which is pretty much what I was doing anyway.