I have been asked a lot of questions about the difference between tattling and advising? Well, I’ll tell you the difference. Tattling is if you tell an adult something that isn’t important just to get someone else in trouble. Here is an example. If Michael dropped a piece of chalk and Mary told the teacher, “Michael dropped his chalk.” That is tattling.
Advising is when a kid tells an adult about something very important. Like, if John tells the teacher that George took Matt’s books and threw them on the floor and this is the second time he saw it happen. That is advising. It might not seem very important but it is because George might be bullying Matt and that is very serious.
A good way to know what to do is to think about what might happen if you don’t advise an adult. If you have a feeling that you should tell an adult, then you should.
When adults were kids, a lot of them heard that “Sticks and stones can break your bones but names will never hurt you.” That just isn’t true any more and we need to help the kids who need our help.
We also need to help the adults understand how difficult it is being a kid who needs to advise an adult about something. The adults need to understand that they should keep our confidence ‘cuz we are trying to do the right thing and it’s hard to do sometimes.
We need to let the adults know that we need and want their help.
Photo by Sarah G
