“Oh! Mom. Look at this,” my 7-year-old says, holding up a piece of slightly crumpled paper. “Get into bed.” “Look at this. Look at what he threw in my room …” “Get into bed please,” I tell my youngest son.
“Oh! Mom. Look at this,” my 7-year-old says, holding up a piece of slightly crumpled paper.
“Get into bed.”
“Look at this. Look at what he threw in my room …”
“Get into bed please,” I tell my youngest son. “I know about the paper airplane already.”
“But look what he wrote …”
At this point my patience is completely gone.
“GET. INTO. BED. NOW. IF YOU TRY TO TATTLE ON YOUR BROTHER ONE MORE TIME, YOU ARE GOING TO BE GROUNDED TOMORROW.”
It was bedtime a few nights ago. My 7-year-old was dancing around like usual, trying to drag the nightly pre-bed rituals out as long as possible.
While tidying up his bedroom, he found a paper airplane his older brother had thrown into his room the night before. Written on it was a secret invitation for my younger son to sneak across the hall into his brother’s room for the night.
I already knew about the airplane and had commended my 7-year-old for turning down his brother.
But kids just love to get their brothers and sisters in trouble. My 7-year-old couldn’t resist telling me about the airplane again.
When are my kids going to get that being a tattletale is only going to make me irritated with them?
My children are well-versed in when it is appropriate to tell on someone: when that person has hurt someone or destroyed/written on/broken something. I don’t want to preside over arguments about paper airplanes, smelly feet or who had the Wii remote first.
If I get into the middle of all of their disagreements, how will they ever learn to resolve conflict on their own?
But children seem to operate under the disillusion that if they tell on their brother or sister for doing something naughty that they will be the “good child” and their sibling will be the “naughty one.”
Just ask my 3-year-old.
“Mom!” she’ll call for me. “The boys aren’t sharing the popcorn with me.”
Or …
“Mom! The boys didn’t hang up their jackets. They left them on the floor. You should send them to their rooms for a timeout.”
She thinks she’s the little boss. Her eyes hold a gleam of superiority as she tattles. I can almost see the wheels inside her head turning as she thinks she’s gained the upper hand.
“Please stop tattling,” I tell her. Then loud enough for my sons to hear I say, “The boys know they have to hang up their coats.”
She’ll walk away, looking disappointed, then turn around and holler at her brothers herself.
“Pick those coats up right now!” she yells at them.
Most of the time they’ll shrug off her demands.
Her response? To tattle.
“Mom! They’re still not listening,” she’ll say.
I ignore her and wait for it: the question that inevitably follows.
“Mom who’s being the goodest?”
• Mommy Talk is written by Journal-Times reporters Marci Laehr Tenuta and Janine Anderson. Reporter Mike Moore writes Daddy Talk.
