stop the phrase “tattle-tale”. stop indirectly telling kids that if they speak up about someone that’s bothering them, they’re doing something bad. stop contributing to the culture of abuse.
seriously though this NEEDS to stop. my mother. a grownass woman of 59. had to ask me over and over again if I was sure it wasn’t ethically dubious for her to go to her employer and report harassment and terror tactics from a coworker because she didn’t “want to be a tattler.” stop teaching kids not to be “tattle-tales” because they will not grow out of it.
This this this.
I hope this is okay to add but in addition to the above it can create immediate and dangerous problems for children, with other children.
When I was six years old, one of my first grade classmates bullied me relentlessly for a long time. When I tried to tell the teacher that he wouldn’t stop touching me, she told me that I was being a tattle-tale and disrupting the class. So he got worse and worse. Before I knew it, he was telling me that I had to let him destroy my school supplies because his daddy told him that women have to obey the word of men. The bullying culminated in him and his friend waiting until the teacher and all the other kids left at the end of the day, cornering me at my desk, then threatening to bring his dad’s gun to school and shoot me if I didn’t stop wearing my favorite boots.
I didn’t tell the teacher because that would have been ‘tattling’. I didn’t tell my parents until they asked why I was upset that night. I wound up talking to the principal with my dad, and the principal was shocked that I had been too scared to report a shooting threat.
I know that a lot of people might think a kid would definitely report something like that, but I didn’t. A lot of kids don’t. Please, please give kids the chance to tell you if something is wrong, don’t brush them off, make sure they know that they can come to you for help. Don’t make them think they’re a burden or a ‘tattle-tale’.
And you might think, “Oh, well kids should know the difference between tattling and getting help, they should know when something is important and when it’s not. They should know better.”. They don’t. A 3 year old does not know he doesn’t need to cry when he wanted the blue jelly bean or if the thing he’s trying to do doesn’t work, those things are important to him and he is expressing himself in the only way he has ever known and it is your job to teach him how to manage his emotions, not internalize them because they “aren’t important”.
Little kids don’t know what’s important and what’s not. As they get older they learn, but if you just tell them to quit complaining and deal with shit, that’s what they’ll do until it’s bigger shit that does matter and now it’s your fault that your kid feels like he/she can’t express themselves when frustrated or scared or angry or whatever. You might think “Well, he’s 5 now, he should know.” Just, inherently? By osmosis? Did you even hold a child-rearing book against his head to increase the chances of successful osmosis? NO? Then I’m guessing you didn’t teach him that his feelings are valid but there are appropriate and effective responses, and which those are.
Also: Stop bullying your fucking kids into being bullies. “Man up” and “Deal with it” are not appropriate parenting techniques. You just told your kid that his/her problem doesn’t matter and they should just cram it deep down and stop bothering you with their emotions.
Yeah, you’re old as fuck and your kid’s problem seems stupid and asinine, but your kid isn’t old as fuck and that problem is new and they don’t know what to do about it. Don’t be a dick.
