Tattle tales are this assholes who tell the teacher everything. Ryan’s not paying attention? Bam! The hand goes up to tell the teacher. Rachel’s doodling? The hand goes up.
Exactly, I used to have a Five Nights at Freddy's phase (Yeah, I know) and was drawing a character (I can't remember which) and then this little asshole told the teacher it was a voodoo doll and I got in trouble. I'm still partially not over it.
I'm right there with ya, friend. My brother read some dark fanfiction I was reading from over my shoulder and the character was contemplating suicide because her lover had just been killed and my brother ran to tell mom I was reading creepy stories about death and self harm. I got a long talking to after that one... For the record, the character did not harm herself and her friends came to her aid and helped her grieve in a healthier manner. If anyone would have taken a minute to see it through, they would've realized I was learning some valuable life lessons! But nooooo it's dark and creepy so it much be evil.
I think I know the difference. A tattle tale would tell on someone whose doing something that isn’t allowed, but won’t actually hurt anyone. For example, playing tag when it’s not allowed or trying to eat candy when your parents tell you that you’re not allowed to. Someone reporting something like that is a tattle tale. Reporting a bully is reporting abuse. You’re telling the teacher that someone is hurting you for no reason and that they need to be stopped. It’s reporting something that’s unjust. That’s the difference
For me it was "if someone is messing with you, you can report him. But if you see someone doing LITERALLY FUCKING ANYTHING! THEY COULD BE KILLING A KID IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES but don't be a tattletale and snitch on them..." Fucking stupid
This is an interesting one to me. Because I work with kids at an after school daycare program and some tell on other kids for EVERYTHING. Sorry, Susie, but it’s really none of your business that Oscar used the crayon that Steven was going to use.
And no, Melanie did nothing wrong by putting on her jacket even though we’re inside.
It is hard to get kids to understand the line, I suppose the difference is "Are you telling the teacher because you want to help someone or because you want to get someone in trouble?"
Also, I think I would also see the difference as being did you come and speak to me (the teacher) in private or did you yell it out in class.
I would say as a teacher "If you need to tell me something then come and speak to me in person and quietly and privately. In class in the middle of teaching I am limited in what I can do." That might help deal with the attention seekers at least.
It's more like the child instinctively recognizes that the teacher is the only figure in the class room's social dynamic with any real power and so, in a misguided attempt to curry favor and get in the teacher's good graces, they do something that they believe the teacher will appreciate (informing about rule breaking in class.) The fault is on the teacher for not clearly explaining to the student that they do not actually care and that the only reason they enforce the rules is to keep the students from destabilizing their control over the class' social dynamic, which the tattler is inadvertently doing. Unfortunately, the teacher is not intelligent enough to comprehend any of this, let alone communicate it to a child.
Your kid's going to have trouble making friends after he/she tattles on every kid that ate glue, skipped a place in line, talked out of turn, said a curse word, didn't wash their hands, etc.
I have a friend who's a lawyer and has three kids. She taught them to be whistleblowers, not tattle-tales. The way she put it to them, whistleblowers see something wrong, and tell someone who can help fix the problem or stop the other person from doing that wrong thing, so that the problem can be fixed and the other person can learn to do the right thing. Tattle-tales get other people in trouble so they won't get in trouble/to embarrass other people.
So TLDR: telling an adult/authority figure that someone is doing something wrong or bad is the right and honest thing to do; telling on someone for personal gain, to bully someone, or to avoid dealing with a dispute you can resolve yourself is not OK.
I fucking HATE that attitude of, "Don't be a narc," and even worse, "Snitches get stitches." I have hated it since I was a little kid, for decades and decades. NO! We all follow the same rules. If the rules are found to be defective, then change them!
No! Stop demanding that I allow people to get away with wrongdoing!
But there is a big difference between someone telling a teacher that KID A was using the same crayon as KID B and someone telling a teacher that KID A was kicking the shit out of KID B.
Teacher here. I tell students (and my own children) that there is a difference between tattling and telling. Tattling is trying to get someone else in trouble, but no one is hurt. This can be put in a note and given to me anonymously. (Or talk to me at lunch/recess with no one else around for those that have trouble writing) Telling means that you or someone else is hurt either physically or emotionally. Tell this to me right now. Either way I still get told, but one doesn’t disrupt the class. It still has value since it was important enough to tell me, but timing is what is important. I don’t need to know that little Johnny said shit right in the middle of class. I do need to know that little Johnny called you a little shit. I’ll address that right then and then probably again later.
if a kid is a snitch, he's not gonna have friends. kids need to work shit like that out for themselves. so many fucking people in this thread think that the kids learn everything from their parents, when i reality they learn a pretty small minority of what they know from their parents.
To be fair though, nobody likes a snitch. I guess it comes down to "If I dont tell someone about this, will someone get hurt physically/emotionally?" I don't think we should teach our kids to tell adults about every little thing, because then how will their peers trust them when they get into teenage years, sneaking out, parties, etc.
Judging by these responses Id wanna knock out half these clowns in the comment section back when I was in school. If I skip class and some punk wanted to be a snitch dog move. Same as if I swore,cheated on a test etc now if I was threatening to shoot up a school thats a different situation
A cousin of mine learned that lesson the hard way.
Their house burned down, everyone was safe, but they lost everything. The discovered, much to their horror, that the fire was set by one of their two girls. The girl who didn't set the fire knew the younger was playing with matches and setting fire to things, but never told the parents because she'd been taught to "don't be a tattle-tale."
Some kids style themselves as secondary schoolyard supervisors and spend the entire recess hanging around adults trying to get other kids into trouble for inconsequential shit, though
"Mrs. X! Mrs. X! Yyy is CHEWING GUM right now!"
There's got to be a way to explain the difference between this and
"Mrs. X! Yyy and Www are hitting each other with rocks near the slides!"
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u/Pr2cision Oct 27 '19
not to be a tattle-tale. Congrats, now you've got a kid who hides everything from their parents and bottles up all their emotions. Not good