Why do kids tattle and what can I do to stop it?

Question

I'm a mom and daycare provider and I can't seem to figure out how to stop all the tattle telling at my house. About 95% of the time there is nothing wrong with the child's behavior. The tattle is something like, "so and so is stacking all the yellow blocks!", "she's playing with the books!", "he's poking the dirt with a stick!". I explain that it's just fine and ask the child to go play, finish coloring, eat their lunch, whatever it is they are doing. The bigger problem is that it's a disease and it spreads to the other kids. If one starts tattling the others start in and the next thing I know I have a house full of whining tattling toddlers. Yikes! I've tried re-direction and reinforcing th behavior is okay. On occasion I've even given time outs for the bigger kids. Any ideas? Why do kids tattle? And what can I do to help stop it?

Answer 1

Maybe explain to them that there are certain things that deserve tattling like if someone is getting hurt or doing something that can hurt someone else and the other things aren't things that need tattling?

Answer 2

When we were younger my mom would tell us that if we tattled on someone unless it was life-or-death situation we would get in trouble too. She said "no one likes a tattle tale and it's not necessary to keep telling on each other, so if you keep it up you will both be in trouble.' And that generally stopped the tatling.  

Answer 3

give them a spanking.

Answer 4

I had a parent toddler group also, ages 2-3 and when the kids did that I would totally ignore them and eventually they stopped when they got no reaction at all.

Answer 5

Listen to the child. He is trying to tell you something.  Why do you want to stop communication?

Kids are social just like adults. They need to be listened to.