Tattle Tell

The boys were picking on each other and tattle telling on the way to church the other day. I read a blog recently about a mom who used the "write it down" method of tattle telling, so I thought I'd give it a try.  I don't remember what they were telling on each other about, even though I was there because it's a small car and the radio just won't go loud enough to drown out the bickering *sigh*.  So I said...

"Boys, if you want to tell on your brother, write it down on a piece of paper and I'll read it."

As fast as I could finish the sentence Coby was going through his notebook to find a paper and pencil. Oh yes, he was determined he was going to get his across to me!

Coby:  "Mama, how do you spell 'throw'?" 
Me: "T H R O W" (smiling)

He wrote a few more words...

Coby:  "How do you spell 'bookbag'?" 
Me: "B O O K B A G" (giggling to myself)

Continues to write...

Coby:  "Mama, how do you spell 'stupid'?" 
Me:  "S T U P I D" (trying to hold in laughter)

Caleb:  "uh uh, I didn't call you stupid!" 
Me:  "Caleb if you want a rebuttle, you have to write your side of the story on a piece of paper and then I'll read it."
Caleb:  "I don't have any paper!" (with grunts and whining) 
Me:  "Oh, well maybe Coby will let you borrow a piece." 

Coby:  "I don't have any." (he really didn't because he wrote his on the bottom of a schoolwork paper)

I dug around and found a piece of paper and pen for him to use.  He started writing.

Caleb:  "Mama, how do you spell 'Power Ranger'?  (this is really interesting and funny now)

Coby:  "How do you spell 'pants'?"
Me:  "Pants? P A N T S" (one eyebrown up by now)

Coby hands me his paper.

Me:  "He 'pants' me? What does that mean?"
Caleb: "Pinch!" (reminder, this is Coby's note)
Me:  "How do you know he meant pinch?"
Caleb:  "I don't know."  uh huh

Caleb handed me his note.

Ahhhhhh, well this makes perfect sense.  Caleb just wanted a little respect!  Makes sense, right?  A teachable moment...

"You know how Jesus forgives us when we do something wrong, that's not nice? Well everytime the devil tries to write down every little thing we do wrong, as soon as we say we are sorry and ask for forgiveness, this is what he does with the paper the devil writes on." (proceed to ball up the paper and throw them out)

They both apologized to each other.  Ahhhh....brotherly love!  The lady who used this method did say that after they realize they have to do this everytime, they will stop the tattle telling, or at least be greatly reduced.