MYOB!

Kindergartners are notorious for tattling, so this week's lesson taught them the difference in tattling just to get someone in trouble and reporting serious things. The general rule of thumb I taught the children was to report pain, danger, and damage to property. To make it easy to memorize, I had them learn the pattern of letters PDP, standing for pain, danger, property. Then I taught the chant, "PDP, PDP, tell the teacher when it's PDP!" We stood up and bounced to that until they got it got it got it, and then we read a story and responded to some practice scenarios. Well Friday afternoon, children were deciding whether they should report certain situations or try to solve the problem themselves. Given the example of starting a fire, they knew to report. For having someone stick their tongue out at them, they knew to solve that problem themselves. When we got to the question of whether to tell the teacher that a peer was doing messy work, I asked, "Is that pain?" "It's NOT pain!" the children responded. "Is it danger?" "It's NOT danger," they chorused. "Is property being hurt or stolen?" "It's NOT hurting property!", they replied. Then from the middle of the group, a blond-haired boy piped up, "And it's not your BUSINESS, either!" I think he got it got it got it!