Anyone who has spent any time around young kids, especially in the preschool and kindergarten age range, knows that kids go through a phase of either loving to or feeling an intense need to tattle on their peers.
The problem is that parents already feel overwhelmed enough by the tattling, and trying to keep up with it only intensifies for teachers when they have a whole classroom full of students trying to tattle, pointed out the members of the "Am I the A**hole?" (AITA) subReddit.
Kindergarten teacher and Redditor anonymous_poster43 decided to try to balance her students' "need" to tattle with her need to maintain their class schedule, so she implemented a "Tattle Phone" that they could report their concerns to instead of stopping the class in its tracks every five minutes.
But when a parent voiced concern that the Original Poster (OP) was not actually listening to her students' needs, she wondered if the "Tattle Phone" was too extreme an option.
She asked the sub:
"Am I the a**hole for creating a 'tattle phone' in my classroom?"
The OP's students were going through a tattling phase.
"I (29 Female) am a kindergarten teacher at a school in my hometown."
"And those of you who know kids in that age range, they LOVE to tattle."
"All day long, I will hear, 'Mrs. OP, Kinsee picked her nose and ate it,' or, 'Mrs. OP, Johnny is looking at me, and I don’t want him to,' or, 'Mrs. OP, in lunch today, Steve was chewing with his mouth open,' and on and on…"
"Sometimes the kids will race to me to get their tattles in first."
The OP decided to implement a new system to reduce tattling in class.
"It was getting to a point where I would hear up to 20 tattles every single day. So I decided to come up with a solution."
"I bought a voice recorder shaped like a rotary phone for my class."
"When I brought this to my class, I started by saying this, 'Okay, class. Lately, I’ve been noticing a lot of tattling going on. It’s getting a little silly. Let’s go over what a tattle tale is, and we need to talk to an adult.'"
"When explaining when to tell an adult, I said, 'If you are getting hurt, or you see your friend getting hurt, then you should ALWAYS tell a teacher.'"
"Then I gave the examples of tattle tales like the ones listed above. I even made a game out of it of 'tattle tales v tell a teacher.'"
"Then I presented the phone. I showed them how to use it. Then I explained the times they are allowed to use it."
"And it was a hit! The first week of using it, I had over 150 tattle tales, all ranging from someone picking their nose, someone passing gas at recess, someone getting ketchup on their shirt, etc."
But there was someone who was not happy with the new phone system.
"Well, one day I received a call from a disgruntled parent. They said, 'Charley Cho came to me and said you wouldn’t listen when he wanted to tell you what someone did.'"
"This kid's tattle-tale was that someone was making faces at him."
"I explained what I did with this tattle phone, and she degraded me with, 'You’re not listening to the kids.'"
Fellow teachers were a little more divided about the approach.
"I told my coworkers about my new strategy, and most are on my side. One teacher has said that this can make it seem like I don’t want to listen to the kids."
"I personally think I am in the right. Of course, if a child comes to me with an emergency, I will always listen and jump into action, and I made that clear to my students."
"But before I came up with this plan, I swear I was stopping every five seconds of lesson time with a child telling me that someone was making fart noises in class."
"AITA?"
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You're the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some reassured the OP that this was actually an incredible idea to keep the classroom moving forward.
"I first saw a 'tattle phone' on a YouTube video, and that teacher specifically mentioned listening to the tattles in full to make sure that nothing got missed if a kid used the tattle phone when they should have told a teacher, which makes this a hundred times better than just getting fed up and telling kids to stop tattling to you at all."
"The kids are learning you aren't gonna listen to bs about boogers when you're trying to teach, and any kid who screws up and mistakes serious things for tattles will be heard, helped, and learn that wasn't a tattle."
"NTA. This is the best possible way to avoid missing important info just because the kids drowned the important bit with bulls**t about boogers." - CaerileumBleru
"As long as OP is listening to the recordings in full at the end of every day in order to catch anything that needs to be followed up on because it should have been reported to the teacher, then it's an effective classroom tool."
"Accidents happen, but also, so does fear. If a kid is too scared to tell face-to-face, they could use the phone instead as a last resort. This could be useful in helping kids that need it but are too scared or conditioned and keep quiet." - Environmental_Art591
"NTA. The issue that parents don't understand is that it's a teacher's job to make sure children learn, that they are safe, and to create an environment where learning can happen in a positive way. It's not a teacher's job to make sure every child feels heard and valid, about every single thing."
"Learning not to tattle is a part of growing up, just like 'what an adult needs to know vs. telling them every single thing that comes into your head.'"
"Former teacher here (mostly due to parents like this one), the Tattle Tale Phone is great, I would absolutely steal it if I was still teaching or had multiple young kids." - makethatnoise
"One of the teachers at my local elementary school had a tattle notebook. The kids had to take the time to write out their concerns. It stopped a lot of the unnecessary stuff." - FlippingPossum
Others pointed out that this would teach children valuable aspects of communication, such as waiting their turn and discerning between an annoyance and an emergency.
"I am an integrated learning specialist, and I help students, families, AND teachers figure out systems that work for them to achieve aligned goals, and I APPLAUD you."
"You taught them what a tattle is versus what should actually be told to a teacher."
"You helped them achieve THEIR goal of getting their tattles heard, and YOUR goal of teaching without interruption, not to mention what should be a parent’s goal of having class time dedicated to learning and not to their kids being tattled on (which some kids use to bully others)."
"You did hear them. You listened to the recordings, and I know you would act on them if necessary."
"The parent used an all-or-nothing statement: 'You’re not listening to them.' That’s a cognitive distortion, and you don’t have to take it too seriously."
"This is an area that takes nuance, and I think you have it. Being a responsive adult doesn’t always mean you have a response AT THAT VERY MOMENT. That can actually create stress. Not to mention, your needs matter! Making your day smoother matters."
"This is a creative, problem-solving, win-win-win idea. NTA." - MagsKat
"OP didn't do anything wrong. By introducing them to the tattle phone, it helped them to learn some boundaries." - IceSeeker
"NTA. I feel like this would also help the children learn that it’s okay sometimes if their concerns aren’t addressed IMMEDIATELY. In my experience, this is one of the biggest issues with kinders: everything needs to happen RIGHT NOW, or it’s a BIG PROBLEM."
"Teaching them that it’s okay to wait to solve non-emergencies is an important developmental skill." - ilanallama85
"Honestly, this is genius. People who haven't spent 6 hours straight with 20 five-year-olds have no idea how draining the 'constant reporting' can be."
"You aren't ignoring them; you’re actually teaching them a vital life skill: prioritizing. Learning the difference between 'my friend is bleeding,' and 'Johnny made a weird face' is a huge part of emotional development. If anything, the phone gives them a way to vent that energy without killing the flow of the entire class."
"That disgruntled parent is overreacting. If you stopped to validate every single 'fart noise' complaint, you’d never actually get around to teaching them how to read or write. Don't let one annoyed mom ruin a system that clearly works for the other 90% of the kids. Stick to your guns!" - Appropriate_War_6383
But a few Redditors saw bigger concerns at play.
"NAH, I guess. But you are playing with fire. If there is ever an instance in which a kid uses the tattle phone for something that you really needed to hear right away, and it negatively impacts someone, you’re going to have much bigger headaches than the one you already had." - JohnnyFootballStar
"I would suggest talking to an attorney, there may be issues involved with the recording aspect in terms of privacy laws or liability depending on what kids disclose." - Downside_Up_
"On the other hand, I think in this particular situation, the kid was trying to explain he felt bullied. Someone making faces at him might mean someone being racist, you know, people pulling up their eyes to look Chinese, for example (Charley Cho is a very Asian name)."
"It obviously bothered this five-year-old enough so they told their parents about the faces, and the fact that their teacher didn't want to listen to him."
"I remember when I was a kid, trying to tell a teacher that some of the boys were picking on the only American kid in our school. They weren't physically hurting him, but they were making his life pretty miserable: mimicking his accent, calling him a Yank, etc. The teacher told me to stop telling tales."
"So, I watched as that kid got teased and bullied for the rest of the term, and then he disappeared. His parents had pulled him out and sent him to a different school. I guess he had told them what was happening. I never forgave that teacher for ignoring the bullying. I lost all respect for her." - alwaystenminutes
"I’ve seen teachers post on social media that they use a 'tattle phone' or some equivalent of that, but I’ve personally never worked with a teacher who uses that. I don’t want to make assumptions about this teacher or their colleagues, but as a counselor, I would much rather a teacher consult with me when there are classroom-wide behavior issues (such as tattling)."
"That being said, even with frequent reminders of what is and isn’t tattling and what things need to be told immediately, kindergartners are still often working on developing the ability to know the difference. I personally would much rather a kid tattle than for them to feel like they shouldn’t tell something serious."
"NAH, I suppose, but with addendums." - hayleybeth7
Though a few Redditors had reservations about the use of the Tattle Phone, most recognized it as a positive tool that would help keep the classroom curriculum moving forward and help children practice discerning between important, emergency-like information and simple annoyances.
