Tattling

Bea has become a huge tattle-tale, and well, a brown noser! For instance, they are supposed to be putting on pajamas. Two minutes into it, "Ainswee's not puttin on her padamas!" OK, thanks for the update Bea. So I give a "Ainsley, put on your pajamas." Then here's Bea with, "But I'm putting on my padamas! I'm doin what I'm supposed to be doin!" Ugh, it's so annoying! She also adds her little two cents in about stuff, like "Ainsley, please use your fork for your food." Bea - "You don't use your hands, that's messy!" Yes, thank you peanut gallery.
I try to discourage it, but I do want her to tell me when something's serious, like Ainsley's about to hurt herself or whatever. I could really do without the brown nosing though, it's so annoying!

 

Sounds super annoying!!! How does Ainsley respond?

I have my own little bossy girl too. Ana has started using her bossy voice to tell Meara what to do. "Mewa you need to sit down NOW!" "Mewa, mommy said to blah blah blah." My stock response is "Thank you for your input Ana, but Mommy will handle this." I don't know if that is the right thing to say or not.

Incidentally I found the "Little Miss" books at the library last week. Do you remember those from the 80s? I took out Little Miss Bossy and Little Miss Chatterbox and we read them both last night at bedtime. We'll see if my Little Miss connects to the books and changes her ways!

 

We have a Little Mister Bossy here in Jacob. He would love to boss Jackson around all day long. On the positive side, he is also much more likely to favorably comply with requests made upon him. Even so, it can get really annoying. I can only imagine how bad it will be in a couple more years! :crazy:

 

Ainsley actually seems to like the attention and the fact that she is annoying Bea. I think she doesn't do what she's supposed to do sometimes for the sole purpose of bothering Bea. :wacko:
I'll have to look for the Mr. Men books, esp Little Miss Bossy. I loved those when I was a kid!

 

Sarah can get in spurts of tattling. I have found the approach that works best with her is turning it around and asking her why she's coming and telling me this. If she's coming and telling me so that Timothy will get in trouble, then she's tattling and can be punished if she keeps it up. If she's telling because Timothy might be going to get hurt, then she gets thanks and I deal with it. That dividing line seems to work well.

Marissa

 

That's a great approach! Thank you!!

 

My 12 yr old does that! UHG!!!!!! it drives me CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY!!!!! I have tried many things and nothing works 100%. Now that they are older, I just act like I am not listening most of the time when the tattling junk is going on - probably the wrong approach but oh my goodness! by getting on to the one being tattled on I am feeding the tattler! I always ask blood? bones? vomit? poo? and then ignore.

 

Amy is doing this too. I think it's an inevitable side effect of the fact that we praise them for doing things "right." (I'm not saying I don't believe in praise -- I know that debate is a whole different can of worms -- but personally, I believe in parental approval as an incentive for good behavior.) By pointing out when Sarah is doing something wrong, Amy is also making sure I know that she (Amy) is doing it right.

And, like you said, Sarah also seems to play it up sometimes. She responds to Amy bossing her around the same way she responds to us -- by digging in her heels and getting sulky. So it becomes this whole big drama, whereas if Amy would only leave her alone, Sarah would (maybe) just do her thing.

I like Marissa's approach -- I'll try that too.

 

ugh - alisha does this too! sometimes i give her the "mommy's the boss, not alisha" line, but usually i just try to ignore her - it's so annoying!

 

I am going to have to remember this! Good way to deal with it!!