Is that Telling Tales as in lies or communicating and relaying what happened? As a parent, I would want the teacher to be open to the child going to talk to her, if something upsetting has happened or was said at school. I wouldn't want the child to bottle it up, there might be a genuine bullying issue (especially subtle ones), even if there isn't, the teacher could guide the child how to handle the situation.
Me and my son call them The Lunchbox Mafia, at his school it was the girls, they would check his lunch box and tell the teacher if I had sneaked in so much as a marshmallow or brownie! Mini-Margaret Thatchers-a whole coven of them! I told him to tell them they were 'off duty" till they were grown up.
You sound as if you are a teacher as class sounds generic rather than individual. Keep the blighters much busier, challenge them and reduce free time. Buy a big bar of soap and place on the front of your desk, first tell tale that gets said wash childs mouth out with soap!!!
If it's an individual child and it is about what has gone on in school i would tend to believe them, some seriously staggering stories come out of schools that are normally a version of the truth!
<em>edited by SarkySue62 on 28/01/2011</em>
There's a fine line though. My daughter's now in Year 3 and I know that a couple of the classes when she was in Year 2 had problems with telling tales. She was not the type to tell tales but took from what they were told that you shouldn't go to the teachers if you had a problem - that was her interpretation and not what had been intended. Unfortunately, it meant that when she was being bullied, she wouldn't speak to her teacher.
I've tried to clarify it by telling her that it's not telling tales when it directly affects you and that it really upsets you.
I think MsHari's idea is good but children still need to know that they can talk to a teacher about what's going on.
I think all kids go through the 'telling tales' phase at that age. It should not be encouraged but I wont worry too much about it. Most kids get bored with it and outgrow that phase and then some people stay like that even as adults!
Have you tried
a focus look at the situation with the whole class. Identifying the problem from your perspective and brainstorming with the children on why they feel the neeeeeeeed.
From there, brainstorm on what tales need to be told to the teacher (family/community) and what can/should be solved by the children themselves.
After this, the children could come up with a poster of strategies for dealing with common tell-tale 'issues' and phrases they can use to empower themselves. ie "When you do that I feel...". You can cut the tell-tailer off short by referring them to the poster.
Good luck.
Isn't it their age - I have a 7 year old and he's always coming up to tell me about what someone said or did - I just tell him I'm not interested - but I'm not a teacher and I suppose you can't say that in case it's a bullying problem.......
When we are in a group I've noticed that most of the kids in that age group and backwards and forwards with he said and she said and he did and she did....... I thought it was just a growning up phase.....
Are you not able to tell the constant tell talers from the ocassional ones. I don't envy you and this is one of the reasons why I never trained to be a teacher!
I hope others can give you some good advice - I'm just relieved there are people like you who train to teach our kids and save us all from hearing all the telling of tales!!!!!