Stop snitching and other lessons we reluctantly teach children

This summer I have taken on the daunting task of being an assistant counselor for a group of kids at a daycare in the Olney/Northeast section of Philadelphia. My group has 20 rostered kids, 14 that show up daily, and the age range is 5 to 11. So for 9 hours a day, I am breaking up fights, leading countless games of an altered "Captain's Coming", singing every camp song I know, and dealing with countless choruses of "Miss Aaaaaalliiiiiii..." Point being, my kids love to tattletale. I'm constantly bombarded with "Miss Ali, he's chewing with his mouth open;" "Miss, she stuck her tongue out at me;" "Miss, she starin' at me!"

There's this slogan: "Stop Snitchin'" that has been popping up everywhere recently. I'm not a fan of this slogan, in my mind it's associated with the witnesses to the murder of an innocent 7 year old boy that were intimidated into changing their testimony to allow the man on trial to go free. I associate it with the articles I read about shootings in broad daylight on a busy street where people are too scared to come forward and help catch the people that did it. Part of me completely understands the self-preservation aspect. The "why should I put myself out there when I didn't know the one who got killed" aspect. Typically, I side with the Mothers-in-charge "Step up! Speak up!" campagin which is trying to give people in philadelphia the courage to take a stand against violence and help stop it.

I say typically because after working at this daycare for a week now... I want to shake a few of my kids and scream "STOP SNITCHIN'!" I'm trying very hard to teach "good tattling" and "bad tattling." At the age of 7 though, most of them don't quite understand that cutting in line, or flicking ears is not a matter of life and death, and my patience only runs so deep.

It's a hard thing to teach, the line between not being a tattletale but to know when speaking up is okay. I've watched mothers smack their children in the back of the head and yell "snitches get stiches," which probably reinforces the idea that they shouldn't tattle, but probably also teaches them that they should never speak up. I can sit (sit... ha! who am I kidding, run around) at work day after day and repeat that "there are serious things that we should tell Miss Ali and Miss Tina, but there are somethings that you need to use your words and fix yourself" but does that help?

Something to ponder...