Can I have a nice "How to Talk..." type response to 3.9yo telling tales please?

[beansprout]

When are out with friends, ds1 keeps running up with "x said there are not any leaves in the park", or "said he is not my friend" or "x hit me". As he is always in my sight I can see that ds1 is giving as good as he gets and is just as often the one who is saying these things or hitting his friends.

Sometimes it is pretty much constant and I'm not quite sure what to do. Should I just acknowledge ("hmm, ok") and let him try to sort things out for himself? Unless they are really hitting each other we don't tend to intervene.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Oh don't kids just love telling tales, DS1 is nearly 5 and at the peak of it

I don't intervene unless its serious either.

Usually with 'x told me that there aren't any leaves in the park' I'll say 'nevermind, he's allowed to say that if he wants'

With 'x said he's not my friend' I usually say, 'maybe he just wants to play on his own for a while and will play with you later'

Keep it light, acknowledge the issue with words rather than just 'hmm' because they might just remember what you said next time and not come to you! Then move on because it's all forgotton within 2 minutes

Until the next time then!!

Thanks for your reply.

I read this in the 'How to Talk' sibling book yesterday! I wanted the answer too as my DC are always telling tales on each other!! The reply in the book is to say something like.
'I am not comfortable hearing about what x is or isn't doing/ saying. But if you want to talk about you then I am happy to listen'
It seems a bit wordy to me but decided to give it a go today. Just got bemused looks!! But at least it deflected them!!But I will persevere. They do say that if the tale telling is for dangerous things then it is OK!!!!!!!!!

Thanks - have tried that today and it's really helped!!