Certain behaviors our kids display can really wind us up. In this episode, Janet offers a solution to three common ones. First, tattling—when our kids seem to have the incessant need to tell on friends or siblings for every minor thing they do. As adults, we might label this person as a gossip and steer clear. As parents, we might fear it could eventually lead to our child being alienated from his peers. Second are threats — when our kids use ultimatums with peers, siblings, or us, like “If you don’t do this, I’m going to… ” (using their most challenging tone). Should they get away with this? How should we respond? Lastly, Janet covers actual warnings kids give us, like when they say, “I’m going to hit you,” or “I’m about to hurt my sister.” Shouldn’t we be alarmed? Should we scold them and forbid them to say such things? Janet shares her advice on all of this and more in this week’s episode!
Transcript of “Tattling and Threats”
Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.
Today I’ve got three types of behaviors that I want to address, all with one basic solution. These are behaviors that can be alarming, aggravating, or just annoying for us as parents, and we tend to react negatively to them for those reasons.
First, threats. When kids say, “If you don’t, I won’t.” Or, “If we do this, I’m not going to do that.” And in the case of the parent’s note that I’m sharing, the child uses this as a leverage to get what they want with their younger sibling and the parent. Then number two, warnings. When our kids say, “I’m going to hit you,” “I’m going to kick my sibling,” or “I’m going to hurt you.” That’s not fun to hear, right? What the heck do we say to that scary stuff? And lastly, tattling, which is when kids report to us what another child is doing. And the thing is, nobody wants their kids to be tattletales. Is this a precursor to them being the town gossip? It seems like it, right? Well, no, it’s not. Especially if we can handle this calmly when children are little.
If you don’t mind, in this podcast, I’m going to do what I like to do. I really like this challenge and I believe, or at least I hope, that it’s helpful. And that’s what I said before: giving you a tool to use in all these cases. One that actually works with many, many, many other behaviors that we’d rather our kids didn’t have.
Why do I like to take examples that are kind of disparate and try to link them up for you? Because as a parent, what I always want is clarity and simplicity. These days we can go on social media and find a ton of advice for every specific situation. And there’s some really helpful stuff out there, don’t get me wrong. But all these various specifics can tend to give us the impression that we need to keep seeking answers to every new situation that comes along. What I want for you, and what I wanted for me, is the opposite. I want you to know that you can trust yourself, that you don’t need me or anyone telling you what to do in a given situation. And that’s why I tried to make my online course as complete for you as I possibly could.
We can group all three of these types of behaviors, threats, warnings, and tattling—and again, just about every other behavior that comes down the pike—as communication. Now just saying that word makes me groan because it’s become a really popular thing to say, and what the heck does it mean? Oh, behavior is communication, great. That’s annoying to me in a way because it’s mysterious and yet somehow we’re supposed to get it, it’s supposed to answer everything for us. Oh, communication, got it! Now I know just what to do when my child says they want to bury me in the yard.
So I’m going to explain what I mean by communication. What I mean is that we take this as our child communicating information to us or to their sibling or their friend, and that’s all. It’s not a proclamation for the ages or some deep-seated feeling going on for them, a big problem, something we’ve done wrong as parents. It’s just momentary information they want to share right now.
And since these examples are all word examples rather than just behavior examples, this could be even easier to see as communicating information, right? Easier to see than the communication that children are giving us when they’re hitting or kicking or doing those physical things. That’s communication too, under this heading, but it’s harder to see it that way.
Now, kids may say all these kinds of things, threats and warnings and tattling, they can say it in a tone that’s threatening or a warning or tattling kind of tone. Maybe they’ve heard that somewhere, not necessarily from us, it could be someone at school. It really doesn’t matter. We don’t have to worry about that or feel guilty about that, if we have used consequences in that way and maybe our child is getting it there, it doesn’t matter. All we need to know is that they’ve discovered that there’s a certain power to this intonation and the way that they’re making these threats or tattling. That it gets our attention in a kind of negative way, it has power to bother us.
But when we remove the power—and we’re the ones that can do that. We’re the ones that give it power, and we’re the ones that can remove the power. That’s the thing, we have all the power in that way. So when we remove the power in our mind, just seeing this as information, then there’s no power there, right? It’s just information. There’s no oomph to it.
But maybe this idea of momentary information isn’t helpful to you either, so let me try to explain. Let’s take the easiest one of these first: tattling. That’s annoying. And yes, with worry-prone minds that we as parents always tend to have, we can level this up in our minds to where we see it as foreshadowing some negative qualities in our child, they’re ratting somebody out. But all I can say is that it doesn’t foreshadow anything, especially if we see it as information and respond to it as such. So, “Rachel isn’t letting us play.” Aha or Ah. It can help us to have aha or ah or oh in our mind as the way we’d like to respond. So, “Aha, she is, huh? What do you think about that?” And if they still seem to want more from us, “What will you do?” Or we might say, “Oh, thank you for letting me know, huh.” Or maybe if they still seem bothered and that they need something more from us, “Let me know if you need my help.” And then the simplest is, “Thanks for the information.” Obviously all those things have to come from sincerity and not snark.
The key is in how we dial this back to interesting information. That’s what will help us to know what to say and how to say it. Essentially we’re just putting the ball back on our child by acknowledging and being open to the information, without taking it to the next level. Well, now I have to come in there and fix something! or They need my help! We don’t need to assume any of that. Just take it as information. There’s no pressure on us and we don’t have to do anything we don’t want to do. If we don’t want to go in and help—which by “helping,” I would just be checking it out a little closer, making sure no one’s getting hurt. But I still wouldn’t tell people what to do, because children need to learn these things for themselves socially. It’s really, really important that they learn experientially. But if I don’t even want to do that, if I already sense, okay, my child keeps doing this stuff and it’s never a big deal, it’s like the boy who cried wolf, then we can just say, “Okay, thanks for telling me. Thanks for the info.” And that takes the power out of this behavior.
Not only does this take the power out of the behavior, preventing kids from getting stuck doing this routinely, it also gives them room. It empowers them to share important stuff with us. Perhaps lifesaving information, like that this other child or this adult did something to me that made me uncomfortable or I saw them doing something to someone else. They’re going to tell us this for pure reasons, that they’re uncomfortable about something that happened. And this is big, important information obviously, that we don’t want to discourage by judging or scolding kids for tattling.
Okay, number two: threats. Now, this one I did get a note about, a short note, so I’m going to read that. She put as her subject line: Kid Who Uses Threats.
Hi, Janet-
I love your show. Was wondering if you have ever addressed an issue like this, and if not, if you could help. My daughter, four-and-a-half, often resorts to using threats with her brother, two-and-a-half, and sometimes her parents too. For example, “If you don’t give me that, I’ll never play with you.” Or, “If we don’t go to this restaurant, I’m not going to eat anything.” There are many other examples, but those are two of the most common ones. How would you approach this?
I genuinely don’t think that I use this tactic in parenting. I’m not sure where she has picked this idea up. Since she doesn’t understand the word “threat,” I find it hard to explain to her in simple terms why this form of leverage isn’t a good idea. Any help would be appreciated.
This parent is spot on, in my opinion, in not wanting to suggest to her daughter that she’s being threatening. I mean, I wouldn’t even try to explain that to her, because that’s us more fully buying into that we see these as threats, rather than as momentary information. Calling them threats is taking it to that whole other level, and we want to dial it back.
First, regarding her saying that she won’t eat at dinner if they go to that certain place, responding to that as information we might say, “Ah, you don’t like the food there,” or if there was some other reason she didn’t want to go to that restaurant, “You really don’t like that place. Sorry, just do your best.” Or maybe, “We’re going to go anyway, but you don’t have to eat.” Or maybe if we’re worried about that, “Huh, okay, let’s bring a snack for you.” Rather than buying into, All right, here’s a challenge, here’s a problem. She’s in my face and I’ve got to fix this or tell her not to do this stuff. And now I’m going to get annoyed about this, because now I feel like we can’t go to the restaurant.
No! Own your power. Dial it back, instead of being threatened. “Ah okay, I always want to know what you think about things. And you don’t want to eat there. Well, this time we’re going to go, so you can bring some stuff to draw with or you can bring a snack.” Don’t dive in any deeper than that.
And what happens when we treat these statements this way? The tattling, the threats, and then later I’m going to talk about the warnings. When we treat them as information, not as a call to action or a call to alarm or to get us angry, what happens? They melt away. The behaviors, I mean, not the children. They lose all their power. Well, I won’t say the name of the wicked person because I don’t want to bring up that image about our children, but that person in the movie that melts into the ground, that’s what happens to the behaviors when we just see them as information. And if we can be at least somewhat consistent—we’re never going to be perfect, we’re going to get caught up and get insulted and get triggered and get touched off. But if even more than half the time we can perceive and respond to this as information, they’re going to lose their power and melt very, very quickly.
But what about our child doing this with their sibling or their friends? So I’d be curious to know how this girl’s two-and-a-half-year-old brother reacts when she says things like, “If you don’t give me that, I’ll never play with you.” Most young children are very, very open-minded. And remember, they’re newer to the world than we are, which makes them very, very intuitive. They do naturally what we have to work harder at doing, what I’m always talking about here, which is seeing beyond. They automatically see beyond. That’s why our feelings matter so much and the words we say don’t matter very much, because they’re always reading us beyond and reading their siblings beyond.
If we’ve responded like this is a very negative thing for our child, then that might tend to color his reaction. But without that, this is really more like a very interesting choice to him. I mean, does he really believe his sister will never play with him again if he doesn’t do what she wants in that moment? I doubt he believes that. So he can decide to try that out, or he can just give it up to her and feel in control of the situation that way, that now maybe he’ll get her to play. Either way, I’m pretty sure he knows this is drama and it’s part of the play. And he has his big sister’s attention and all of that is pretty great, right? He’s in a strong position, even if he gives it up to her and gives in. Being in this position may well be why he has that particular toy in the first place, because he wants to play this way, he wants to explore this kind of conflict or drama with his sibling. It’s very, very common for children to do this.
The way we tend to see it is, Oh gosh, she’s threatening him and this is bad news. Just see it as information and a choice that now he gets to make, from a very strong position. And of course, if somebody’s getting hurt or they’re upset, then acknowledge that. “You don’t want to give it up and you want her to play,” or “Now you wouldn’t give it up and she doesn’t want to play. That doesn’t feel good, right?” Knowing that feelings pass, everything’s temporary, especially with siblings. And they’re supposed to get in conflicts and they’re supposed to have the chance to learn from them, without us getting in the way. If anything, just be the mediator instead of the referee or the boss or the teacher in that moment. Help them to learn in the most profound experiential way, by seeing it all as information and a passing back and forth that’s going on between them. And if they do need more help, then emotional support and mediation is all they need.
Now on this daughter’s end, whether this happens with her brother or with a friend, this is how they learn social skills and learn the consequences of their behavior, that sometimes there is a consequence to them making a statement like that. Maybe this child doesn’t want to play with them as much, especially if it’s not a sibling, because siblings generally do want to keep playing as long as we help make it safe for them. But with friends, they can always choose that they’re not going to put up with that. I don’t know if this little girl’s doing it with friends, the mother doesn’t say. She may have picked it up from friends if the parent doesn’t use this kind of consequence at home.
But this is the way kids learn. They learn whether this tactic actually works or not. And even if it maybe does work in the beginning, at some point it won’t work for them. And then will this girl stand by her word and not play anymore, or will she find another way to connect? Or will she just show her cards that she really didn’t mean it, that it was all a bluff? I mean, this is a very interesting conundrum and there’s so much great learning going on here for all concerned, for her and for the people she’s saying these things to. You may have heard me say here once that this thing of kids going, “If you don’t play this way, I’m leaving” or “I won’t play anymore,” it’s actually extremely annoying to me. But I’ve had to learn that it is something kids are trying out and it’s so much better not to let on that it’s bothering you. And then pretty soon if you do that, it won’t bother you, because you’ll just be kind of rolling your eyes and letting it go, knowing that it’s kind of a weakness on that child’s part, right?
And I don’t recall my kids ever saying something like that. Not that I’m a perfect parent, but they just didn’t do that particular thing. But we’ve had friends over who did. And when I’ve heard that, it was really all I could do to not barge in with, Oh, let’s call your parent right now to pick you up. I didn’t, and I don’t know how they worked it out, but they did. My child, I think, saw beyond, as kids do. They see that surface stuff for what it is, it’s a gift that they have. And if we could do that more, our lives would be easier as parents. That’s just something kids hear from somewhere. Not necessarily from the parents using consequences, but from other kids. And, like the healthy processors that they are, they try it out for themselves, they work it through their system. So that’s all good, right? And what we can do is help them not to get stuck there by us not taking it up a notch, by us seeing it as information.
This one more is a really common one that parents share concerns about, that their child is warning, “I’m going to hit so-and-so,” or “I’m going to hurt you.” When we think about this as information, just information, what is it telling us? That our child is feeling an impulse and they’re able to share it as it’s coming on, rather than waiting until they’re already acting on it. Or maybe it’s not even an impulse coming on, maybe they’re just expressing a feeling to us of wanting to hurt and they never intended to act on it.
I hope I’m not the only adult here who sometimes thinks about wanting to hurt someone if I’m angry. If so, whatever, I’m going to own it! Would I admit that to the person, the way kids do? It’s doubtful. I mean, they’re much more honest, they’re freer, and they’re arguably healthier in the way that they express everything. They’ll tell you exactly what they think about the way you’re dressed and your hair and the way you smell. I mean, you’ve got to love them, right? They say it right out loud. We think it, and we maybe would be too ashamed to say it. I’m only speaking for myself here, I don’t know what anyone else feels. But they say it. They express everything, all the information, all the momentary feelings, wanting to hurt someone else or themselves. And telling someone about that, sharing that with someone that they trust, like us, so that we can stop them, that is extremely healthy communication.
And if we think about it, that can be lifesaving, just as our child “tattling” can be lifesaving. Especially as our kids become teens and young adults, we want them to feel free to tell us that they want to hurt someone or they want to hurt themselves. So take this as information that is not just any information. Our kids are offering us a beautiful and golden opportunity to give them crucial messages. “Wow, you feel like you’re about to hurt in this way. That doesn’t feel good, right? Thank you for letting me know.” Maybe, “I’m here to stop you, my love. You can always tell me these things.” Meaning it.
I really hope some of this helps. And since I did mention it at the beginning of the podcast, if you haven’t checked it out yet, please take a look at my No Bad Kids Master Course. It’s at nobadkidscourse.com. This is an immersive deep dive into respectful discipline, and people have been reporting that it’s really been a game changer for them.
Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.
