So I have two kids, my daughter who is 4 and my son who is 2. My daughter has taken to blaming her brother for EVERYTHING! If I hear something fall or make a loud noise in her room, I will ask her what happened and her response is "He did it!" even if he was in the other room with me. If she drops something, she will say her brother made her do it. If he falls, she says he did it himself, if she falls she says he pushed her. I think you can see the pattern here. I know that this kind of blaming behaviour can be normal, but it HAS to stop. She even does it if it was something that she would not get in trouble for. Not to mention, that my son is by no means a perfect little boy. Sometimes he really does the things she blames him for, but she can be pretty brazen about it, like when he is with me, and she is in a completely different room, or different part of the room, and she still blames him for something that she obviously did.
We have had talks about lying, and how it is NOT tolerated. She has been disciplined for being caught in a lie as well. I ask her why she is blaming her brother, and her response is always "I don't know", so I will ask her if she was scared to get in trouble, and she will admit she didn't want to be in trouble. At that point it is explained that she is not in trouble for what ever she was pushing the blame for, but for lying to me about what happened. This tactic is having limited success. I don't plan on stopping this, unless I can find a better, more effective option.
Anyone else have any experience in this? How did you deal with it? How long did it last?
Don't ask her any questions that you know the answer to. You are only setting her up to lie to get herself out of trouble. Just come right out and say, "Janie, I just heard you drop something, I hope you are being careful!" Or "Janie, I can see you decided to draw on the wall with crayon, and don't tell me it was Tommy, because he's been with me the whole time. Now come help me clean up this mess please."
it's a normal part of childhood, & it sucks.
with my daycare, one of my 3yo boys left (as planned) in Sept. 2-3 times/week, the other boys will blame him! How crazy is that? LOL
If you hear something fall/break/etc, sneak to the doorway & just take a look at the situation before you open your mouth! You may just be able to get a better handle on each of these events....
& never, ever ask "who did it?"....that's a nightmare waiting to happen.
Instead, since you know how your daughter behaves....ask your son 1st. Give him a chance to tell the truth! Good Luck!
When you hear a loud noise from another room-instead of asking what happened-say-"Are you ok?" If something gets dropped- ask if she needs some help-don't give her a chance to blame her brother-because it is human nature to blame someone else if you think you can get away with it. They're both babies acting on instinct-they mean no ill intent-you just have to outsmart them-no easy task. Good luck.
Read her the story about the little boy who cried wolf and have a subsequent conversation about what that means. Allow her to give examples of "crying wolf" and you share some as well. :)
This is more than a tattling issue - this is a personal responsibility issue. She has to learn to accept responsibility for herself and her actions. My GD has the same problem. She would rather poke herself in the eye with a hot poker than to admit she did something wrong. She has been in counseling with a school counselor for two years working on this issue. I don't know what they do in counseling, of course, but I have just now started to see some personal acceptance of responsibility on her part.
The one thing I do at home is to be sure to let her see when I make a mistake and I go out of my way to make a comment like "oh, looks like I did that wrong. Oh, well, no big deal, I'll just fix it!" so she knows that it's okay to make a mistake and we just go back and try to correct/fix it and it's no big deal.
i think thats a common age for tattletaling. my daughter at that age would tell on her self because she;s an only child and had noone else to tell on. i'd J. stick to a no tattle taling rule and punnish for that instead of trying to explain she's being punnished for lying and not what she did wrong. you're trying to use logic with an illogical creature (4 year old=) )
I think its part of a stage more than anything. Just keep up with the discipline. I always told my daughter she would be in more trouble if I caught her lying. She's a pretty good kid now at the age of 7, so in my case she outgrew it.
It makes me think back the time my girls were around those ages and they were in the kitchen drinking milk, I was in another room. All of a sudden I hear my youngest getting mad. I walk in to find her cup of milk empty and complaining that her sister took the milk. Her sisters cup is overflowing. I ask my oldest did you take her milk....she says no. Then after asking why her sister was mad then...she replies with "Well you see what happened was her cup tipped over and spilled into my cup" I laugh about this story now...but of course she got in trouble back then.
Time for a no tattling policy. We have a set punishment for lying and another set punishment for tattling. We carefully explained what tattling is and isn't (is someone hurt, will someone get hurt, did we ask what happened, did something break?) and were very strict about the rules and punishments. It didn't stop entirely, but it did slow down quite a bit. Now that they are older, we only have to remind them about tattling once or twice a year.
P.S. Teachers love it when kids understand about no tattling
I think there are two issues here:
1. Tattling.
2. Not taking personal responsibility.
Neither of these are phases. They are things you have to teach.
For tattling, simply don't listen to it. With my boys, when they used to come tattling on one another, I'd calmly say "well, that sounds like something you need to talk to your brother about." Often I wouldn't even look up from what I was doing.
For personal responsibility, it requires more work on your part. If she drops something, breaks something, does something wrong, whatever, try the "okay, now what do you do to fix it?" approach. Ask her. Say "oops, looks like you dropped that, huh? Okay, what do you do? Pick it up, right?"
Simply guide her to do the right thing.
In these lessons, she's bound to get ticked about having to be at fault. Let her own that anger and teach her to deal with it in a healthy manner. Whenever one of my boys gets into trouble and they get an attitude about it, I remind them that they can be mad, but not at me or their brother. Their anger is for themselves. They should be mad at themselves for behaving or acting inappropriately. And if they don't like that feeling, they ought not do that thing again!
Best of luck and enjoy the teaching opportunities you get from these moments.
I have 2 kids, like you, and my daughter is older and my son is the younger one. My kids are 4 years apart.
NOW, what I did, from the moment my son was born is: I, REGULARLY... explained to my eldest, (in a way she can understand), about HOW her little brother is developing... how because he is younger he does not and cannot know everything she does and does not understand things as she does etc. I explain it in a way that is nurturing and not taking sides. THIS HAS HELPED her immensely... when she is irked with her little brother.
It made a huge difference... in her empathy/understanding/ and patience with her little brother.
BUT at no time, do I favor one or the other. And at no time, do I use her little brother's being the youngest as an excuse for him doing certain things to her. If it is wrong, it is wrong, etc.
I ALSO tell my eldest, that... SHE is a child herself, and I in no way expect her to be perfect NOR to be the "example" for her younger sibling. Because, I do not want her to feel pressured nor burdened... that SHE IS the one to be good all the time. BUT that, she CAN and should tell me anything that bothers her... so that I can understand her as the oldest... and help her.
Per "blaming"... my kids don't really have that problem in a chronic manner. BUT when it occurs, I tell them that it takes 2. It takes 2 to make a problem and it takes 2 to help stop it and work it out. I ALSO tell my kids... that they need to respect each other.... they are siblings, not competitors. They will have each other ALL their lives and they need to be there for each other. My kids are close. Like 2 peas in a pod. I teach them to be a "team." I teach them to know each others cues. ie: If my son is telling my daughter to stop bothering him... she needs to heed to that. Because, her little brother is trying his best... to say it nicely. AND that, she knows DARN well... that the more she irks him the more he will get MAD. And then a fight occurs. But it is because... she did not heed to his cues, in the first place. Likewise, for my son- IF his sister is doing homework and he bothers her... and she gets irked, he needs to stop. Why keep irking her and then making her MAD, too? And that... they KNOW darn well, when they are irking the other on purpose or not. So if the other sibling gets mad... well they knew that would happen. SO, learn the cues of the other, and the limits, of the others.
Blaming.. is not tolerated. I tell them that.
And, when it is ridiculous, I tell them... and they know it.
HOW on earth, can they blame the other sibling when that sibling was in ANOTHER room completely? Duh. So that is ridiculous and not, reasonable. At all. They KNOW that.
Again, "blaming" is not tolerated... BUT they CAN tell me when/if something is bothering them, that the other sibling did.
And I also teach them the difference between: if they did something ON PURPOSE to the other, or if it was just a mistake or done unknowingly.
They know that.
Your daughter is using her younger sibling as the fall guy.
And she may resent him, because he is younger and therefore she may think he gets more leeway.
You have to figure out WHY she is constantly blaming him.
And/or if they are just irking each other on purpose.
Because then, kids get frustrated and mad. And that means they are BOTH wrong.
She DOESN'T know why she's doing it. She's just a baby herself.
She is pretending, and using it to express some of her negative feelings towards her brother, which are very common in oldest children.
I think you need to ignore it, or play along with it. You are taking these statements WAY too seriously. How about if you give her a little smile and a wink and say to her, jokingly, "Oh, what a bad little brother." (Don't say this so he can hear, of course.) You will find that this diminishes her behavior, much more than your being accusatory. And if you say it the right way, she will understand that you know that it was really her.
Please don't discipline her for "being caught in a lie." At 4, you can re-categorize most "lies" under the heading of "pretend."
These young days with your kids don't last forever. Enjoy them, and don't take your babies' actions so seriously. When you have teens you will realize this was nothing.
Great advice from DVMMom.
Never ask who did it you can help it. There will be times you will have to but try to just say something to not put the child on the spot as you setting them up to lie. However you may need to get the bottom of it sometime and then ask in a non threatening way and let them know we all have to be responsible for our actions. If you do this is a way that is firm but not putting them in a corner it often works better. I would not allow lying though. Your daughter needs to learn to take responsibility and you can work on that when the crime of over and it's another day and she's listening to you. Find a way to do this and help her work on it. Read it good character stories. I found over and over if you ask 'who did this' that you will usually have a child in the group that will blame others.
