“Margaret, they said I am not invited to their birthday party.”
If you’re an early childhood educator, I’m sure you experience something similar regularly. If you are a parent of siblings, I’m sure you get your fair share of tattling, too. Oof. Sibling tattling is something else I am not professionally equipped to deal with like I am in the classroom, and I have much less patience for it as a parent.
Tattling is a funny word. For precision, let’s define it. Tattling is “reporting another’s wrongdoing.” To “gossip idly” is a secondary definition that I really love. Words matter; when we frame our thinking of tattling around the definition of gossiping idly, we will be less likely to intervene. Sure, sometimes tattling is reporting wrongdoing, but even when that’s the case, most of the “wrongdoing” being reported is just the developmentally appropriate actions of a young child, and I still probably don’t need to intervene. Remember that observation is doing something. Repeat this to yourself when you feel like you have to “do something” about a situation a child is tattling about.
Here is a little playbook to help you navigate (and hopefully diminish) tattling in the community of children you support. If you’re a parent in a Montessori school community, I hope this sheds some light on your child’s life at school.