Tattling - How to deal with it with other people's children?

[Piper2]

One of the guys in our pipe band has started bringing his young teenage (not sure exactly how old she is) niece to band practices because she supposedly wants to learn to play snare drum (she apparently plays in her school band, but pipe band snare is pretty different technique-wise). DH is the one teaching her, and besides the fact that he doesn't know if she's going to make it musically, she has a real problem with tattling. We've got 2 elementary-aged boys also learning drums (Kevin and our Pipe Sergeant's son), and the last 2 times we've gone to practice, this girl was constantly coming to us and telling us they were doing this or touching that. :rolleyes Last time, she kept coming to me and telling what the PS's son and his little brother (who doesn't usually come) were doing to each other when their mother was sitting just across the room. :scratch Quite honestly, if G was willing to sit there and let D use his head as a practice pad (he was actually playing on his little brother's head with drumsticks), I didn't care. :shifty But I finally pointed out their mother to the girl so she could go bug her instead of me.

DH and I have started referring to her as "The Informer", which I know isn't nice. :O And DH is the one who is having to deal with her most of the time. Is there any kind of gentle response he can give to her when she keeps bugging him about the boys simply acting like boys? DH and I and the other boy's father are watching them 99% of the time, and we call them away if we see them heading towards something they shouldn't be doing (we practice at the National Guard Armory most of the time), so it's not like they're constantly running around unsupervised. We hate to say anything to the girl's uncle because he's a really sweet man (Christian, too, from what I've seen), and we don't want to make things awkward for him. :shrug2 But DH is a little less patient than I am, and I'd like to find some sort of game plan for him to have so that he's less likely to explode on the poor girl during some stressful moment. :blush

This is just something I've never had to deal with before...Kevin usually doesn't care what anybody else does unless it's something he wants to do, too. ;)

[Mama Bird]

How about, "Oh, I see them and they're fine. Please don't feel like you have to keep an eye on them, I've got it covered." Or, "Well, I guess if it bothers G, he'll let his parents know."

[Marsha]

How about, "Oh, I see them and they're fine. Please don't feel like you have to keep an eye on them, I've got it covered." Or, "Well, I guess if it bothers G, he'll let his parents know."




And you'll have to do it a lot. It's a girl problem IMO. My daugher does it too. So does my niece who is a preteen. So does practically every oldest daughter I've ever met.

Since I only have girls, I am around mostly girls. So it doens't seem as jarring as the rough housing and tumbling that boys take for granted.

[The Tickle Momster]

I like MamaBee's suggestion. I was going to suggest a simple "thanks for letting me know". She's old enough for more details though, so I think the other is better.

[Teribear]

I'm a bit more on the blunt side, particularly with a young teen/pre-teen, "I appreciate your concern for the boys but if there is not BLOOD or potential for severe bodily injury involved then I really don't want to continually hear about it."

[Piper2]

:giggle

Terri, we need to bring you with us to pipe band next time. ;)

[Teribear]

Heh...I wouldn't mind going with you to pipe band sometime...but you can handle "The Informer" all on your own, I have faith in you.

I do youth work, I work with teens all the time...they're like toddlers only bigger and with better vocabularies to tell you "NO!". Seriously. They need redirection. They need simple clear instructions. They need VERY FIRM boundaries. They respond better when they know that your Yes is gonna be Yes and your No is gonna be No and no amount of whining is gonna change that. They're very much like the preschool set...and when you think about it it makes perfect sense. The primary task of adolescence is that final separating into their own person. The primary task of the preschool set is realizing for the first time they are a separate person. Developmentally the tasks are very similar and consequently the behaviors can also be very similar. You have to respect the dignity of both the preschooler and the adolescent when dealing with the behaviors and not treat either of them with shame when they need to be corrected but it honestly has always helped me to cope if I remember I'm dealing with overgrown preschoolers. :)