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This vs. That, Part II

This past week the big new behavior has been tattling. I know, as a teacher, that behaviors move through a classroom like a virus and sometimes it's best to ignore them and let them work themselves out whereas other behaviors need an intervention.

As I've been observing and weighing what to do I've mainly been gauging my own reaction. One reason I thought I was equipped to do foster care is because I've cared for other people's kids my entire professional life. And, as a special ed teacher, it's been a pretty close relationship with the need to communicate about and work through some pretty tough stuff with parents.

Yet, what took me by surprise is how different it is to be parenting, in my own home, someone else's kids. Maybe if these girls had remained typical foster kids who were on track to return to mom then it'd be easier and I'd still have some professional distance.

Now that rights are terminated and we've begun the adoption process there is no professional distance whatsoever. And things get to me that I probably would've coped with better if it'd occured in my classroom.

So, as I observe the tattling I'm also noting my reactions. My big internal question is: why does this behavior bother me but that one does not?

I've come to see there are two kinds of tattling happening.
  • Straight up tattling: I wanna get this kid in trouble cuz s/he stole my toy and I'm mad.
  • Ulterior motive tattling: If I kick up a fuss and get the adult involved then I get attention from the adult.
I actually witnessed Jane sneak up behind James, steal one of his beloved animal figures he was carefully setting up in an arrangement, wait for him to yell at her and grab for it, and then she yelled to me: he's taking my toy!

This was on a particularly whiny day when she was seeking my attention in every conceivable
inappropriate way. I was already exasperated with her and then watching that event was the last straw. She got a time out in her room which is pretty rare--about once every 2-3 weeks--because I just could not remove myself emotionally and sort through all the layers of wrong. Besides, even having that conversation would've been reinforcing to her since she wanted attention to begin with.

But later it helped me to think this through. I'm not that annoyed by tattling because it's age-appropriate behavior. I'm completely pissed off by tattling as a tool to get attention.

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