Case
Tattle Tailors

I am currently in my K-5 internship where I have students constantly approaching me to essentially "tattle" on their other classmates. Examples include "he tripped me", "she threw something at me", "Robert stole me pencil", among others. How do I decrease the amount of "tattling" in my classroom?

Posted on: 04/20/13 | Views: 1829
Solution #1
Top Solution
Firs thing first, construct a mini lesson or class discussion about how we can be big girls and boys. I had a teacher who used to ask the students every once in a while, "who should we be worried about?" and the kids would respond "ourselves". Of course if someone is being mean to you you should step away from that person, and if someone calls you a bad name you just ignore them and after that and they continue come to the teacher. if someone put their hands on you, immediately tell the teacher. the goal is to encourage them to be come to you when they are being hurt but for small things you want to praise them for big boys and girls.

Great idea I would definitely use this as an option. Having the children verbally take the responsibility for their own self is important.

I think this is a great idea. It is important to help children learn how to problem solve in their own way.

It is always a good idea to give students responsibility.

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Solution #2
It is so confusing for children to get mixed messages about "You should tell someone if someone is 'bothering' you." and "Don't 'fight' or 'argue' if someone is picking on you. Tell an adult." We tell them these things and then are overwhelmed when they actually do what we told them to do. I think that the first and most important thing is to have the class understand and define what 'tattle telling' is. I would also suggest creating a checklist, "Before I Tell the Teacher (BITT)." The checklist could have important questions that the student would learn to ask themselves before they come to the teacher, such as: Is someone hurt? Is someone in danger of being hurt? Has the problem happened more than once? Did you ask the person to please stop the behavior? etc.... This checklist should be posted on the wall and discussed with the class. If a student can check 'Yes' to any of the questions then they may have a legitimate problem that needs to be addressed.
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Solution #3
I would read a story about tattling and then have a class discussion about the appropriate times to involve the teacher.

Great suggestion!. I would search for some good books to read. We will talk about tattle tailing and we can even do role plays in the classroom after we have read a book. I will encourage the students to use their words and tell their friends how they are feeling.

That is a great discussion! More action needs to be taken, but this is a great start to approaching the problem.

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Solution #4
I would have a mini lesson on being a problem solver. I would talk to the students about trying to solve the problem themselves before coming to me. If Robert stole another student's pencil, the student should nicely ask for it back and say that they do not like when he takes their things. If Robert returns the pencil, the problem is solved! If not, then they should let the teacher know.
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Solution #5
I think that having a mini lesson to the class about behaving appropriately is a great idea. Let the students know that they absolutely should come to the teacher if they are ever being touched or harmed, but to just ignore things that honestly aren't hurting them. If they come up to you tattling, don't pay them much mind. First ask "is anyone hurt?", then "were any hurtful words used?", if the answer for both is no, just tell your student to be the bigger person and brush it off.
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Solution #6
This happens in my internship class as well, my CT handles this by straight up telling the students to stop being tattle tellers or that he doesnt need them to tell him every time something happens. He tells them that he's watching and saw what happened, he doesn't need anyone to come tell him every time someone does something they should be doing, that he will deal with it. He has also told them that he is the teacher, not them.
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Solution #7
I liked the idea of creating social lesson on the difference between tattling and emergency. Students need to understand the difference. Also I have seen teacher use the writing activity called the tattle turtle. This activity requires a student to write their complaint or situation down and turn it in. This helps with the tattling because students when tattling do not want to waste the time to writing it down if it is not important.
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Solution #8
I would tell them that they need to not worry about what others are doing. If they are doing what they should be doing I will notice when someone is doing something they should not do. If it is something extremely important than let the teacher know.
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Solution #9
Something I have seen implemented in the lower grades is a "tattle monster" box. The teacher makes a tissue box look like a monster and then sets it up on a table next to a short little poem that describes what he is there to do. When the students come up to tell her what so and so did to so and so, she says "they either need to use their words and talk to each other, or go and tell the tattle monster about it...not me." The students can then go and whisper their tattle to the tattle monster so they feel as if they are getting their feelings out (like they need to at that age) without interrupting learning.
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Solution #10
I would have a class discussion about tattling. I would start by talking about some the issues and letting the students freely talk about what is happening. Then I would tell the students that from now on I wanted them to talk to the student first that has done something to them, and only if the problem was not fixed I would deal with the situation.

Definitely a helpful post. I once had a teacher that gave out slips of paper to us with an outline for a "complaint". Your name, offenders name, and what happened. I remember her telling the parents that it not only forced them to take time to write (which benefited school) but also by time they got done writing it they might not feel it was as important. Children tend to forget fast. Then we came up to the teachers desk and put it in one of two buckets, "Emergency" or "It can wait" then had to go back to our desk until the teacher called us up to discuss it.

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