Do you tell a toddler off based on the tale telling by another toddler?

[DetectivePotato]

Curious as to what people do.

My friends DS (2.11) is going through a real tale telling phase. I never realised why adults used to tell us off telling tales before, its bloody annoying!

My DS is 2.7 and we were at toddler group the other day. I do watch my DS a lot and see what he is doing. Obviously I am not hovering over him and I may miss the odd thing. My friends DS kept coming up and telling me all the time that "xxxx is doing this, xxxx is doing that" Some of the things he said about I didn't see, one incident was when they were singing at the end and they were all jumping around to a song. DS accidently bumped into my friends DS and he came running over to tell me that "xxxx has pushed him" I saw what happened, DS didn't push him but everyone was jumping around, friends DS was looking and saw that it wasn't on purpose, my friend also told her DS that it was an accident, so I ignored it. He went and sulked behind a curtain and cried.

Anyway, my point is, do you tell your toddler off based on the tales of another toddler? IMHO you can never be sure if the story is completely right and I don't want to be constantly telling DS off for something that I have't even seen. If he is misbehaving I generally see it anyway. But should I be telling him seeing as another child has said he is doing something?

I would say the answer is that you go with that child and ask your child what happened. Frankly two and three year olds do interpret the world their own way. That's not to say they lie, it can appear that things are the way they think.

So I wouldn't no. But I would pay closer attention to check my DCs weren't being little sods too. :)

A long time ago for me now, but when DDs were toddlers I would get them on one side and tell them "X feels like you pushed him, and he's sad. Give him a cuddle to feel better. I'm sure you wouldn't push anybody, because you're kind" - which was probably completely the wrong approach, but I was part of tight bunch of mates with varying degrees of thuggery in their offspring, and we agreed to approach things with positive reinforcement rather than blame.

If you haven't seen it, talk to someone who did, if not, and it's not major, let it go, they're toddlers and will forget the issue if you wave glitter at them.

All part of growing up.

TBH, unless I was hovering over the top of DS, I couldn't be paying closer attention. I don't see every little thing but I am pretty aware of what he is doing as he has a thing at the moment where he doesn't really like babies so I am watching him to make sure he is playing ok.

Not unless there is physical evidence (teethmarks on another child, any one? No? Just my DD then sigh).

Thats a good way of looking at it. Using evidence. DS has been left with teethmarks before and it was dealt with by the mother.

Luckily DS wasn't a biter but I know a few toddlers who have been.

Detective, I have 3 DDs, and only the youngest is/has been a biter. But we have evidence of only 3 bites, and none in the last 3 weeks, so hopefully we've nipped it in the bud!

Thats good then. From my friends toddlers who were biters, I did notice the phase didn't last long. I guess as its one of those things that is clamped down upon pretty severly.

I've wondered the same sort of thing recently, well what I mean is where do you draw the line between your child telling you things you'd like to know (such as a being bullied at school for eg.) and them telling tales that as you quite rightly say detectivepotato, is bloody annoying!?!

Thats what I was thinking too. I don't want to discourage DS from telling me something, like someone bullying him, but I don't want him telling tales either (not that he has started yet).

I guess wait until they are older so they can understand the difference.

Must be very very hard for teachers! I had one 2 year old doing it for 2 hours and it drove me mad.

No, unless I actually se something happen - or know it's very typical of DD - I don't tell DD off based on a tale. But I don't discourage kids from saying things as such.

I might say to the other child, 'well I'll keep an eye out in case she does that again' or explain if they've got the wrong end of the stick so they can still tell me what happened, and hopefully get an idea of what's worth reporting and what's not! My niece has a habit of saying another child is 'being nasty' which could mean that they didn't watch her do a cartwheel when she wanted them to!

At their age (DD is 3)you'd be on their case every 2 minutes, and quite often they're just being little busy bodies.