Tattle and Die

I have several strict "neighbor child" policies at my house. One of them breaks down like this:

I have neighbors.

I tolerate my neighbors.

The neighbors have offspring.

I barely - sometimes, with the use of narcotics - tolerate the offspring.

I do not even attempt to tolerate the offspring's tattling.

There's one kid, we'll call him "Berliner," who loves - LOVES - to tattle. He is a tattler extraordinaire. Some parents teach their kids to call hogs - this boy's parents have obviously schooled him well in the art of "I'm gonna tell on you!" because in my 15 1/2 years of parenting, I have never met a better one.

Berliner came to the door just this afternoon, in fact, with a new tale of woe regarding one of my darling innocents. He did it hesitantly, knowing what a hard-nosed mother I am, to my own children and any unfortunate brat who may cross my path. And I'm not a mother who thinks her children can do no wrong - my house is evidence enough that yes, my children do indeed have a naughty (and often artistic, judging from the masterpieces on my walls, doors, countertops and CEILING) streak.

But knowing this boy's fondness for involving every conceivable adult-in-charge whenever his social networking goes awry, I pretty much let everything he says go in one ear and out the other. Unless he's sporting fresh blood or a newly-escaped eyeball, he's not getting much sympathy from me.

After listening grimly to his gripes, I called forth my son, who came to the door a few minutes later with my other son and the rest of the gang. After hearing what REALLY happened and chastising my son, throwing in some friendship pointers ("Just because the 10-year-old tells you to punch your friend, and no matter how 'soft' the punch was, we do NOT punch people"), I announced loudly for all the neighborhood to hear that We Don't Do Tattle At This House.

Furthermore, I said, if anyone feels the need to tattle to me about something my boys have done (as long as it was relatively harmless, not "your kid was teasing my pet finch and it died from nervous exhaustion") instead of solving it amongst themselves, my dear boys will no longer be available to play with for the rest of the hour, afternoon, day, week, or decade, depending on how bugged I am. They will come inside and enjoy uninterrupted bonding time with Mother (and probably some chores). So if we want to play with Tweedledee and Tweedledum, we better not be coming to their mother's door with all our petty complaints.

It works pretty well. My boys are scared into submission, the neighbor spawn are awed and amazed at my parental prowess, and if they dare to cross that line again, they can't say they haven't been warned.