TLP 479: Tackling Tattling | Jessica Mair Interview

Praise the Lord. Every day when I come into situations where I go, I don't even know. And I can run to God's Word, and there's always an answer. And that is just such a weight off of my shoulders.

Parenting as Worship and the Show’s Purpose

Parenting isn't about us. In fact, parenting isn't even about our kids. Parenting is just one way Christian dads and moms are to worship God. So welcome to the Truth Love Parent Podcast, where we train dads and moms to give God the preeminence in their parenting.

I'm your host, AM Brister, and today my sister and I are going to talk about what to do if you have tattletales in your home, and you probably do. But before we do that, I want to remind you that Evermind Ministries, Truth Love Family, and the Yearlong Celebration of God all offer conferences, workshops, and various in-person and online teaching opportunities.

If you're interested in finding out how an Evermind speaker can join your event or how we can host an event for your group, go to truthloveparent .com and click on conferences. And now let's talk about what the Bible has to say about tattling.

My guest is Jessica Mayer. She's a very special person for a number of reasons. First she's married to John, and the two of them have five kids all under the age of nine. So you can know she has a lot of experience dealing with our topic today.

She and her husband also work and live at the Wilds Christian Camp and Conference Center in Brevard, North Carolina. I know I've been mentioning for a while that I so badly want to introduce you to this ministry, but unfortunately today's not the day.

So moving on, we just have far too many things to discuss. However, I do want to point out that one of the ministries Jessica has at the Wilds is mentoring young ladies and women. She and her husband also have been youth workers for 11 years, and her heart for the Lord and His Word affords her many opportunities to counsel, which is why Jessica is also on Team TLP.

She's on our counseling staff, and a number of you have received the benefit of her Christ-centered counsel when you've sent questions and concerns to Counselor at TruthLoveParent .com. But there's something else very special about Jessica.

In addition to being an amazing wife, mother, mentor, and counselor, Jessica was also one of my first and dearest best friends. That's right, Jessica is my little sister. I could not be more proud of her and how God is using her to minister to her family and to other people's families, and I'm overjoyed that she's joining us today to talk about this issue of tattling.

Thank you for joining us, Jess.

Thanks so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here. Excuse my voice. I am struggling with allergies, cold, one of those things all put together, so I am a little bit more nasally than usual. But again, thank you so much for having me.

I really appreciate it.

As my listeners and you obviously know, I only have two kids myself, so I do feel pretty confident, assuming that you've probably had a child or two in your house who's tattled on a sibling. Is that an accurate observation?

I mean, my kids are pretty much perfect in every way. So I mean, I'm just like speaking from experience of your children, just kidding. Not really, not really. But no, I think I have. I've heard it once in a while.

And I actually told my kids this evening what mommy was going to be doing. And Ethan kind of got his eyes really big and he goes, oh yeah, mommy, I know, I know. I was like, how do you know?

Oh, wow.

And to be honest, I mean, just to be fair, I do have some insider knowledge that a couple of your kids have tattled on a couple of their innocent cousins from time to time. So you know, there's that. So yeah, I'm glad you're being honest about all this.

That's good.

Tattled, yes. Innocent, not so sure.

Probably not. And they may have just been tattling on the fact that my kids were tattling on them.

So yeah, it's a vicious circle. Who knows?

Oh my.

Defining Tattling and the Heart Motive Behind It

Okay, so let's before we completely deteriorate, let's start our discussion with a good solid definition. I like to use Merriam-Webster and they define tattling as, quote, to tell secrets about what someone else has done or to utter or disclose in gossip or chatter.

Is that a good working definition for you or would you propose a better one?

One of the things I've commonly seen in my five children and five very drastically different personalities would be the motive of to selfishly try to get someone in trouble with no desire for their well-being.

And this is my main concern in tattling. And this is why I desire to even speak about it is because we tend to take care of the issue at hand, but really one of the big, huge issues at hand is that child who came right to you and is standing right in front of your face.

We miss it completely because they're there not for the well-being, let's say 98 of the time, not for the well-being of their brother or sister, but really more for the well-being of I have been hurt and I want to make this right, justify myself.

And so this is, I think it also goes very much along with Merriam-Webster's definition as well, but just to kind of break it down more in layman's terms, yes.

And I like it because it focuses on the idea of selfishly trying to get someone in trouble with no desire for their well-being. I mean, that's something that Merriam-Webster loses, you know, to tell secrets about someone we're all like, yeah, well, you shouldn't do that.

But the selfish motivation behind it is so huge. And I know what you mean too, about forgetting about the kid standing right in front of you being selfish because you're more focused on what the other kid is doing that's so bad.

So I want, I just want to kind of express a concern that some of our listeners may have just from the get go of this conversation. Isn't there a form of tattling that's good and beneficial? I mean, think about it as a parent, don't we want to know that a child is drawing on the walls or playing in the street or just trying to give a sibling a, you know, a swirly?

Oh, absolutely. That's a day to day basis for me. Every single one of those that you said I encounter three to four times a day. And yes, I want to know or else it just would not be good at all. So I agree 100 and that's where I had to really pray and consider what would be the best way to be able to get across the important information, but not to the detriment of my home or my children or health or life in general.

And that's where, right away at the beginning, I make sure that's not an emergency situation. So I can ask something like, is everybody okay? Did anyone get hurt? Is anything being broken? Is anyone hanging from something?

As moms, we also very much know, okay, if my kids are having room time, which means all my kids are in one room quietly playing, I know what could possibly be happening. So I can direct my question more specifically to the situation.

But really the basic idea is to find out, is everybody okay? And then right away, once I get the response from my child, yes, everything's okay, then of course, at least my children do, want to jump in very quickly after they say yes and go, yes, but, and that's where I cut them off right away.

And I stop them and I ask them to listen to me first. And then I ask some probing questions.

That sounds pretty fair. Cause you know, you don't want to, you know, obviously if Logan is hanging upside down off of the four wheeler by his diaper, you want to know about that. So that's really huge.

But then I guess, I mean, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves either, but I'm assuming that if it's, if that's being done correctly, then it's not really technically tattling at that point.

Correct.

Yes.

Okay.

That sounds, that sounds totally fair. And if hopefully we'll, any other questions the listeners may have, we'll be able to clarify.

By the end.

Why Tattling Matters Biblically

So, okay, let's start out with why do we need to deal with this issue in the first place? I mean, why do you think is tattling a problem biblically?

Well, with each situation, we need to figure out what, what is going on in the heart. We need to figure out why our child feels he needs to tattle before we can go any further. What is that driving factor?

So it could be, are they afraid someone will get hurt? Which is actually probably one of the best ways that you'd want to tattle or communicate with your parents. Do they think they're being treated unfairly?

Are they angry and they want the other person or sibling to get in trouble because they're just angry with the situation? You know, they didn't win that game in the bedroom and that's just dumb. And so I want to get my brother or sister in trouble.

Hurt people, hurt people.

Exactly. Are they tempted to lie to get their way? And this is, this is obviously, we would say, wow, you know, that sounds really, really.

Bad.

But how many times have we twisted our words to make things sound worse than what they really are? So that we can get our way, whether it's someone thinking better of us or us getting a promotion or whatever, it's the same thing with children.

You know, they know if I can twist these words in a certain way, then I can get my way. And I'm sure there are a lot of parents who are out there saying, my kid would never do.

That.

And that's where I really want to challenge parents to really consider that we are born.

Sinners.

And for us to have this opinion that our kid just, this is just too horrible for my kid to even consider there. That's just not how they think.

They would never do that.

They would never do that.

Exactly.

But I think the main point you really point getting out to me is the fact that oftentimes we have it in our head why our kid does what our kid does. And that's, that's foolish because we're all hardwired with the ability to paint ourselves in the best possible light while simultaneously painting someone else in the worst possible light.

For any parent to sit back and go, well, my child wouldn't do that. You're basically just denying human nature.

Absolutely, absolutely. So this is definitely more in them already to survival of the fittest kind of thing where it's just this natural tattling to keep them above. So for us, we need to guard our hearts as parents to make sure we are thinking truth about our children.

And I'm not saying let's slam dunk our kids, you know, and say you rotten sinner and you have no hope or anything. Our hope is in Christ and we need to be understanding having that biblical perspective of our children.

And that starts at a very young age. And I see some young parents who struggle saying, well, it's just a little kid or they're just a little baby. Well, they do have sinful motives behind everything they do because number one, they are a sinner and they need Christ.

And so we need to, before we jump into this, realize that unfortunately, our children's heart motive is most likely most of the time, especially if they're unsaved, is not for the benefit of the other person, but is only to benefit themselves.

And when we realize this, we can be better parents. We can help them know Christ.

Good.

Teaching Children to Resolve Interpersonal Problems Biblically

So when we're teaching our children not to tattle, what are we teaching them how to do?

Okay.

So we are teaching them to be able to communicate, to figure out how to handle a situation, those interpersonal situations. And the Bible is everything we need for life and godliness. And I just praise the Lord every day when I come into situations where I go, I don't even know with one of my children, I can run to God's word and there's always an answer.

And that is just such a weight off of my shoulders because I can put that on God and know that not only am I going to get the answer, but it's going to be an answer that actually changes.

Them.

And that is awesome.

And so, okay. So in teaching our children not to tattle, what are we teaching them how to do?

To respond biblically in their hearts and to resolve interpersonal problems. And as with all parenting, the benefit outweighs the work of training every time.

Yeah.

And that's not something we talk very much about. I think when we talk with children, you know, resolving interpersonal problems, but really that is so much of what we need to be focused on in our parenting.

I love that you said that. That's great.

Asking Questions to Discern Motives

Okay.

So we have a kid coming up to us, right? And we don't know their hearts. You talked about there's lots of different reasons why a child may say what they say and why they tattle the way they do. What do you think is the best way of determining why the child is tattling so that you know how best to help them respond in their hearts?

I want to number one, understand their motives. And it's nearly impossible to 100 understand any child's motives, but we want to do our very best in asking questions. And unless the Bible makes it clear that people do certain things for certain reasons, we don't want to assume our kids motives.

That is such a dangerous place to be. So I am going to ask some probing questions and that could be, you know, after we ask, of course, if anyone's gotten hurt, then I'm saying, but why have you come to mom?

And ask questions, more specific questions of why are you here? What has happened? And, you know, once you're getting the whole story, a lot of times everything starts becoming clear. You know, I was playing a game and such and such broke and then I got really mad.

But then Anya hit me. So then, and you're realizing, okay, well, I'm seeing all of this come unwinding.

So.

And obviously this kind of depends on the age of the child too. I mean, a teen may be able to be worked through easier than a five-year-old kind of process, maybe finding out their hearts.

Absolutely.

I don't, I think also that we don't need to know the nitty gritty details of anyone's hearts, whether it's our teen or a toddler to be able to parent them to Christ likeness. And that is, and that's a danger that we, well, we don't know absolutely why they did what they did.

We can show them Christ in every action, everything that they say and do. And in showing them Christ, that's where the change comes.

Amen.

Training Children to Handle Tattling Correctly

Okay.

So how do you recommend training your children how to correctly handle these potential tattling issues?

Well, first talk your child through it. And when they come to you, calm them down by asking them to stop talking and to listen. Then I always ask, is anyone hurt? If not, without even knowing the situation, we start to get to the heart.

Normally most parents listen to the tattling child's grievances and run off, deal with the other child who clearly has sinned. But in so doing, they often neglect the moment to moment time where that child who's standing right in front of them has a major heart need and we're totally missing it.

We're walking right by it. And we are addressing this big issue while the other person is dealing with, most of the time, selfishness and pride and anger, and they're just walking away. And that heart issue is not even being dealt with.

So I ask, what's the problem? After hearing what happened, I asked, did you talk to them about it? And a lot of times I'll quote Matthew 18, 15, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his faults between you and him alone.

If he listens to you, you have gained a brother. I let him know that he should go to that person with a correct attitude and ask them not to do whatever it is anymore. But that's the desire and really explaining to them that if you do this correctly, if you do this God's way, we are not in control of how the other person's going to respond.

So I don't want to say this is a magical all is well and everything will be fixed because the second verse obviously very clearly explains that that's not always true. But we are responsible for our own actions, which our mother used to always say to us.

And it is so true. So if we handle it correctly and the other person chooses to respond correctly, we have gained a brother or a friend. I often use that word as well for my kids to help them understand because they're normally dealing with their brother or their sister.

So they're like, what? I gained one, one in the world. So I say, you've gained a friend. There's this friendship here because you have said, you know, I'm going to put away my discomforts and my awkwardness to be able to restore you to Christ.

So if I see that you're making a bad choice, you're angry, you're being mean to someone, I'm going to be willing to put off anything that I really would prefer not to have to deal with so that I can restore you to Christ.

And in turn, our relationship will even be restored. And that's the ideal if both people respond correctly, which of course doesn't always.

Happen.

Sure.

But I'm really glad you mentioned that passage because I mean, the verse you quoted is actually Jesus himself telling us how to be reconciled with the sinning brother. I mean, now many people refer to this process that's outlined in Matthew 18 as, you know, church discipline or excommunication.

I guess those are accurate descriptors, but I think the names miss the fact that the whole process is designed to help us be reconciled. I mean, no one should enter a church discipline situation dead set on getting the person kicked.

Out.

They should give the individual every opportunity to repent of their sin, turn to their Savior. And if they refuse to respond to admonishment like a believer, well, then Jesus does say that the only recourse is to remove them from the body of believers because they're acting like an unsaved person.

So obviously this is what we're trying to teach our kids. They should try to get their, I should say, they shouldn't try to get their siblings excommunicated. They should be trying to reconcile with their sibling or their friend, and mom and dad may have to get involved at some point, but only because the other child refused to obey and be reconciled in the first place.

Absolutely.

And I mean, let's just be honest, excommunication sounds fabulous, you know, to some of our.

Children.

They're like, yes, one less in the family.

More dessert for me.

Exactly. But obviously we're bringing them along in their walk with the Lord. And God is so gracious and kind to allow us to have children who have asked Jesus to come into their heart to save them. And there is such a huge difference between the child who is unsaved and really has no desire because they aren't a child of God to please God and the kids who are saved.

And you do see that desire that they want to make things right and they want to have a right relationship with God. And that's when I asked them, why do you feel like you should have come to mom to tell me.

This?

And often even that question stops them and the eyes get really, really big. Because my children who are children of God, they have that moment of, ugh. Because deep down, they know exactly why they came to mom.

They weren't happy with what was going on. And so really putting that, they might not ever answer that question, but putting that question out in front of them just to display their heart. Christ does this to us often in God's word, where he shows the heart of the person who didn't really see it.

They didn't see their struggles. And then they all of a sudden saw that nasty, ugly heart and went, oh, look at that sin. So we're kind of doing the same thing. We're putting that truth out in front of them and saying, hey, what was your purpose?

What was your reason for coming and telling mom? Because then it kind of leaves them going, uh, mm, eh, mm. Because who really wants to tell the real reason they came? So after discussing that, I remind them that love rejoices in truth.

And this is really huge in our house that we often, often talk about that we do not rejoice in sin, but we rejoice in truth. And so anytime that we are talking about our brother or sister, oh, our brother had to get a timeout.

And we use the word timeout just generically for any kind of discipline that we do in our.

Home.

We just generically call it timeouts. But you know, any of my children talking about anybody else's timeouts or getting in trouble, anything like that really is rejoicing in somebody's sin. And God says that we shouldn't be rejoicing in sin, but we should be rejoicing in truth.

So sometimes it's even opportunity for a child to be rejoicing in sin, to be able to just go tell somebody else how bad that other person was. You know, mom doesn't know because she wasn't in the room, but man, I just, I gotta tell.

Somebody.

And a lot of kids are that way. You might have a child that way that you're, you're just sitting there nodding and going, oh yes, I have that too. So we're really wanting to talk about that as well, that, you know, this is an opportunity to rejoice in sin, but we want to rejoice in truth.

And what is truth? God is truth. So right now, you coming to mommy, are you rejoicing in God's Word and who He is and His truth, or are you rejoicing in sin, wrongdoing? And that really should bring that child to really consider what was their motive.

Once my child has a repentant spirit and understands the importance of reconciliation, then, and only then, I send him to talk to the other person. So when my kid is not happy and ticked with the situation, that's probably not really a great time for me to say, now go make it right with your brother and sister, because I promise you, they're probably not going to.

So I really want to make sure that they are, have that repentant spirit and they see that their motive behind coming and telling mom was just disgusting. It was gross. It was wrong. And as soon as we as parents understand that we need to communicate our children's sin as God sees our children's sin and sees our sin, the better parents we can be.

Because when we go, oh, see, that's not okay. Well, that's not okay. That is not even God's opinion of sin. God looks at sin and it disgusts Him and it's vile and it's directly against His character. He uses very big, horrible words for sin.

And so when I hear my child tattling or talking about another person, I want to make sure that they understand that's gross. That is disgusting. And in a Christian's life, there is no room for that. So I'm not making it look pretty or even acceptable.

I am making it look vile because that's what it is. I hope that's helpful.

It is. I think it's great. However, I think probably one of the big questions out there right now is, okay, so how do I do this? You know, this is not what we do in our home. This is not how I handle situations.

You know, I may have been, I may have been guilty of saying, you know, oh, that's not okay. Or I may be guilty of just ignoring the tattler and going right to the person who did the wrong in the first place.

And so this person might be sitting there out there listening, going, okay, well, how do I do this? And listen, I recommend to you, as I have many times, that any time you need to make a change to your family culture, please have a family meeting before you institute something like this or try to use it.

Absolutely.

I mean, let's just say hypothetically that, you know, tattling in your family is like this, right? The little sister runs into the room screaming that her older brother did let her play on the Xbox. Well, your MO is then to call into the other room and tell him to be nice to his sister, right?

Of course, he responds that she was hitting him with the remote. She calls him a liar. And now before you know it, you told everyone to get off the Xbox and go play outside. Now, of course, none of these, none of us would ever handle it that way, right?

But if you did, and you tried to institute these suggestions during that conflict, for the first time, you are going to have an uphill battle. Your daughter's just used to you doing what she tells you to do, right?

And my brother, you go punish him and you're like, okay. So if you suggest that she has sinned in this issue while she's all upset about her brother, what you're trying to accomplish may totally be lost and you're making it harder on yourself.

So instead, please sit down with the family tonight, think through this, pray through this a little bit more. Sit down with the family tomorrow night and explain that the Lord has helped you see that there are some things in the family that don't glorify him.

I would suggest you apologize for your own involvement in the times that you've encouraged this behavior and allowed it to take place. But then unfold for them God's view of tattling. Like my sister just so beautifully said, she just talks about the fact that God hates sin.

All sin put Christ on the cross, no matter how small it may be to us. That selfishness in our tattling is a wicked sin. It's an act of rebellion against God. And then we also need to explain to them that the goal of love and restoration needs to be in our hearts.

And then you need to unfold for them the new steps that everyone in the house needs to be taking from now on when they've been sinned against by anybody else.

Absolutely.

Once you've had that conversation, it will be important to coach them through it. Most definitely.

And never assume that just because you had a meeting, a family meeting, that now everyone's going to go from there and do it the right way. You're going to have to step through it. You're going to have to, in a way, have a mini family meeting in that moment.

But the beautiful thing is you can kind of touch back. Like you said earlier, you can kind of put up that finger and that one little finger is touching back to the larger conversations you've had multiple times before.

But you have to have those conversations before that holding up that finger communicates anything to your kid.

Just real quick review. I would say, did you talk to them first? And they say no. Then I would stop talking. I would immediately say, then stop talking to me and go and talk to them right away. And this is, of course, after they already know the correct thing to do.

So I don't even let my children tell me about it because I want them to realize it's never okay to go talk about somebody to somebody else if you haven't gone to them first. Because then that's called gossip in a lot of areas because this is going to roll over into a lot of interpersonal relationships that they have.

So I want them to really walk away knowing, well, we don't ever talk about other people's issues or your issue with somebody else with other people. The only people that you do go and talk to in Matthew 18 is somebody specific who can help with the situation.

And so of course they're coming to mommy and mommy can help with that situation. And so, but first I don't even want to speak to them until they've correctly handled it. So I'm coaching them through that and then I would say, okay, I would go with them the first or second time and say, hey, I'm going to stand here and watch you talk with this person and listen to how that they're having their conversation.

So it's not one of my kids having an attitude going, well, I told you not to do this. You just didn't listen. So I went and got mom, you know, because that's not what we don't, we don't want that heart.

In it.

So I'm going with him and I'm coaching him through it. And then I'm coaching his sibling through responding correctly. And there I'm helping both of their hearts to grow closer to God instead of making one embittered to the situation, which would be the one who's getting in trouble because they were tattled on and having the other one feel self-righteous because they were just told they could tattle on their brother and sister and there were no consequences in it whatsoever.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, most people really aren't very good at improvising. So I mean, our house, we've kind of scripted it out for the kids, um, what their responses can be to each other. And for example, like the child is allowed to say, will you please stop doing, you know, whatever, fill in the blank, or they're allowed to say, mom and dad have told you not to do.

That.

Will you please stop? So in theory, you know, the offending child should realize they're being offensive, annoying or outright disobeying their, their parents' rules and they should stop. Sometimes I have to help the other child realize that they do need to apologize in the situation.

You know, if they've sinned against their sibling, then to merely stop their behavior just isn't enough. So, you know, as I'm sitting there with my child, the first couple of times coaching them through it, and you know, the first child goes, you know, um, you know, will you please stop doing that?

Mom and dad have asked you not to do that. And so the other child goes, okay, well then perhaps you need to coach the second child to ask for forgiveness. They, you know, they have a responsibility before God to seek forgiveness because only then will true reconciliation occur.

And I think that's really important. So the child's not necessarily going to think that, um, they're going to say, okay, well, I stopped. Everything's okay. Well, not technically. You still sinned against that person.

You should ask him, will you please forgive me? The other person should say, yes, I do forgive you. And then they can go on playing. And once you've done that a couple of times with your kids, uh, working that through, helping them to remember the script and whatnot, because you know, that's one way of helping.

Them.

Um, then, then you can kind of let, start letting them do that on their own. And I have loved the times that I've been, um, down the hall and I've heard this happening where, you know, one of them is getting on the other one's nerves and they'll handle this correctly.

And the second one will actually apologize for what they did. It's such a beautiful thing.

Oh yes. That just, those are great reminders that we just need to keep doing what's right as parents because I, I've had those moments too where you're like, oh, yay, they're getting.

It.

This is so exciting. Uh, so yeah, it should definitely be depending on their age, of course, because that is not something I would be prepared for Olivia. Just know that she's going to respond correctly and she's my three year old.

Or of course Logan can't even speak. You know, he usually just winds up and hits the person that's annoying him. So we're just working on not hitting exactly. I tend for that. No, just kidding. It's all that karate.

Um, but absolutely we want to work through it with them so that it becomes a second nature to them. But let's say that second party does not respond correctly. Matthew 18 says, but if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

And so those two or three witnesses, of course, in our family would be mom or dad, depending on how big of a deal this is. Because you know, right now I'm talking about my toddlers and my eight and under.