How to deal with tattling?

[Anonymous]

Parents of the preschool set, how do you deal with tattling? We have family whose kids are not always nice. DD (4) will run to me every 3 minutes to tell me that they told her she can't play with them. We tell her to work it out and tell them that everyone can play, and we tell her not to tell on people. But from her perspective, she's not reporting their transgression, she's reporting hurt feelings (though her tone implies a bit of tattle or I wouldn't be posting here)

Do you step in? Do you discuss her feelings but tell her to work out the social aspects on her own? It's a recurring theme and avoidance is not the answer.

TIA

[Anonymous]

Why not talk to the adults who are your family members? I'm sure they want the kids to get along, too, nd maybe they are unaware of the situation.

[Anonymous]

We are starting to deal with that with our almost 4 year old but more so with a sibling. I am trying to use some of the same yardsticks as an adult but putting it in child terms. I don't want to make it sound like if you know a kid is bringing a gun to school or someone is doing something that will harm themselves or someone has harmed my child that it would be "tattling" to tell an adult. So I am trying to make a distinction. Is the other person harming you or themselves? Is it something that everyone will get in trouble (think corporate ethics) if it is caught so you need to either talk the person out of it or tell someone? As for working it out - see if she can come up with ideas to work it out and have her give you examples of what she did to work it out before she came to you.

[Anonymous]

Seems to me she's looking for validation of her feelings e.g. "Oh, that's not a nice thing to do". Then you can talk her through how to deal with this. In some situations, an adult does need to intervene. She needs to be able to tell you what's wrong.