Desperate Help with Dobbing 5 yr old

[alias4abit]

ok

Old member new identity for this post cause its really hard to deal with.



OK i have a 5yr old DD, literally any time when she is playing with any other children she dobs all the time, simply over so and so touched me etc so and so not sharing.

It drives most kids and any other adults I am with absolutly insane and I myself am at my wits end about it.

specially recently with the event that occured.

Now I KNOW i have acted wrongly in the instance but She also needs to understand that there is telling the truth and telling half the truth.

In this instance i had a report made about me to DOCS by her teachers after she had told them i had hit her with a object in the eye, which had left a mark.
When in truth I had been telling her for over 15 mins to put the item away an threw the item, which hit her. Now it was not intentially aimed at her (and yes i can see you all now going sure sure , where else was it aimed then?) but I mean it when i say i did not by any means want to hurt her i just wanted her to do as she was told and lost my temper.

After school i spoke to the principal about the instance and they asked DD more questions about the incident and then DOCS was rang by the school again, and I was given a follow up call saying no action would be taken by DOCS but there is a report now on file about it all. and they just spoke to me about services i could use if i needed help.



and after typing all that it now looks like i want her to stop dobbing so I dont get into any more trouble, but I need her to understand the seriousness of her actions and there is a time and place for dobbing.

my main concern is the dobbing when playing with other children.. so any ideas how to stop that?



(oh and if you are going to tell me I did the wrong thing as a parent I already know so please dont, i feel sick with myself for my actions already)

[rayray]

The rule of thumb that my mum used for us was that if the other child has done or is doing something that will hurt themseves or someone else, then we should tell, but if its something less than that like 'she said this' or something that you define as trivial then we should let it go.

It's a fine line though and a 5 year old might not always unstand or be able to make that disctinction.

[Liz]

My only suggestion, I guess, is to not take any action on the dobbing, just teach her how to deal with the situation herself. If such & such isn't sharing.. then just say "oh well, go find something else to play with for a while". Or if such & such hit me "well, just tell them you don't like that" or "play with someone else".

There's one boy at preschool that Tallon tells me is always throwing sand or hitting him or something, and I just tell him to walk away and find someone nicer to play with when it happens (after asking if he was doing anything to that boy in turn!!)

I think it's important to keep them honest so they do 'dob' when it's important. I'm not sure at a young age they would really be able to distinguish between what should & shouldnt' be told to other people.

I think with the situation you're upset about, it was a good thing that she was so honest really. Yes it nearly got you into a bit of hot water, but I wouldn't like my child to feel like they couldn't say how they got an injury or why they're feeling sad or something, even if it meant I was pulled up on something I did, as mortifying as it would be.

*big hugs* to you. We all make mistakes, best thing is that we can learn from them

[Teagz]

Do you think maybe your DD was just being honest and it was taken out of context a bit?

The teacher may have asked her what happened to her eye and she has just said "mum threw X at me" Which isn't really dobbing, it's just telling the truth, and being 5 she may not understand what impact it would have on you or think that it required any further details or explanation.

I think with the situation you're upset about, it was a good thing that she was so honest really. Yes it nearly got you into a bit of hot water, but I wouldn't like my child to feel like they couldn't say how they got an injury or why they're feeling sad or something, even if it meant I was pulled up on something I did, as mortifying as it would be.

As for the other dobbing, I think what rayrays mum said is excellent advise but I dunno how you'd go with explain it all to a 5yo.


My mum threw a cup at me once in sheer frustration - plastic, luckily! - so don't beat yourself up too much about it. It's just unlucky that it got her

[alias4abit]

yeah i know I am completly mortified about what i did, but i also know my daughter and she is such a attention seeker that (and i was also told by her teacher) she walked straight up to her and said look what my mum did.

i am glad for one aspect though, that she is able to talk about stuff that happens.


its more so trivial dobbing, drives me bonkers. I have told her so many times that she needs to learn to sort out her own problems and try not to even acknowledge the dobbing unless its relevant.

My DD, also 5, has been sort of going through this also, but mostly about her Daddy!

They will be playing and he will accidently knock her on the arm or something silly and she will come up and go "Muuuuuum, Daddy hit me...etc etc" which I know is not the truth, because I saw the whole thing!
The best way we have found to deal with this is for me to say to her "You need to talk to Daddy about this not Mummy" and she usually then says "But, but, but" and I am then firm again, and say "This is not to do with Mummy, please talk to Daddy about it", in which case she realises that there is no point. Since I have been really firm about it, she has stopped a lot.
I know when she is just being silly as opposed to when she actually has something serious and important to tell me -her tone of voice is really whiney, where if it is something that is seriously bothering her, she has a really quiet voice, and I know to take her seriously......and she knows Mummy will listen to her and take it seriously, and she knows she can tell me anything.

When she has done it about other children (if it is something silly like such and such took my toy etc etc), then I always tell her not to worry about what they are doing, you just need to make sure you are doing the right thing, and she generally just leaves it there.

I think that it is just an age thing really, and it makes them feel a bit important!

As for dishonesty, the few times she has tried to be dishonest, she has been found out, so she doesn't even bother trying anymore, and is honest even when she knows she might get into trouble!

[Winter]

I just wanted to pop in and give you a ...I have no advice, good luck though.

[MLM]

I wonder if the dobbing is a whole perpetual cycle?
I mean, if she dobs alot and the other kids/parents shy away from her, then she may have resorted to dobbing to get attention. They do say that negative or positive, any atetntion is good.
Does she have many friends?
May be you could have a play date over for her adn somehow bribe her into not dobbing and when its all over, explain to her that people will feel much nicer around her if shestops dobbing.
Hope the poor lil bugga isnt lonely.
Hugs to you too, we all lose it sometimes, dont beat yourself up. xxx

[Inertia]

I can kind of relate to your experience at least. I had DoCS arrive yesterday because my daughter told one of the teachers aides that she had kicked mummy accidentally and spilt hot coffee on the baby. Being that the school is a mandatory reporter, they simply have to call and tell them exactly what they heard - no probing. Of course when they got here they got the full story - for starters it wasn't hot, I can't drink hot coffee, most of it went on me and a few drops on the babys suits which was taken off her immediately and she was checked for burns. If she had had any she would have spent the wait for an ambulance under cold running water. Angie and I didn't get our First Aid Certs for show. I will admit it is both extremely frustrating and utterly terrifying to have two people on your doorstep questioning your ability to raise your kids while wielding the power to take off with them if they don't agree - and poor DH was taken so aback by it all that he is still brooding about it - but both they and mandatory reporters have a purpose. Some of us are just going to get caught in the crossfire over something innocent. I am not mad - nor ashamed - because of their visit. I was initially frightened because of who they are, but at the absolute worst, they could give me valuable feedback on my methods and home, and remind me I am not perfect, so to remember to continually assess how I am doing things and what can I do better.

Accidents and mistakes will happen - and so long as they are not serious then we need to use them as a lesson, not beat ourselves up or let ourselves believe it was not something that 'bad', iykwim. I was watching Harry in the shower once and he slipped so I reached out and grabbed him. He didn't fall, didn't hit his head on anything, so I fulfilled the purpose - but my fingernails left two long scratch marks on his back because I had to grab his slippery body so he wouldn't fall. I got him out of the shower, dried and dressed, and then clipped my nails. I had actually spent years trying to grow them after I finally stopped biting them. Despite having done something incredibly good - saving my child from a potential head injury - something bad happened and it was not caused by Harry slipping. I could just have easily have scratched him changing his nappy, or putting on his PJs. So they had to go.

So one thing you definitely should take from this incident is you need to sit down and take stock of how you handled it and come up with some coping strategies that will help lengthen your patience fuse. What I have next may help, I hope.

Miss L, who was the one who told the aide about the coffee incident, is a persistent nag. Now its not about the dobbing so much as the fact that she does not accept the answer. You can lose it quickly repeating your self over and over to a child who is just talking over the top of you anyway and repeating themselves in the whiniest voice possible. Be it dobbing on someone else, wanting something, trying to give you something or you being in the middle of a conversation with someone else and she has to tell you something right now. The subject doesn't matter - its the frustration of talking to a whiny brick wall.

With Lyta we are implementing a system where by she states it once, waits for a reply and accepts it. It is taking its time drumming this system into her head but in the mean time we need to keep our cools and accept that we are going to be repeating THAT a lot too! When it does become too much I simply ask her to walk away, and if she doesn't, I do. Be it outside, to the bathroom, my bedroom - I walk away and rather than count to ten, I gather my thoughts, assess what she has said, consider how important it is to her - it doesn't have to be important to me, it is to her - and then think of a better measured reply that will hopefully fix the problem. Its impossible to to that with someone repeating themselves in your ear, and even worse when there are other people wanting your attention too. Then once I have what I want to express to her in my head I will find her, sit down in the lounge room with her and discuss it on my terms. I find that when I instigate the conversation, she knows I have heard her now and she doesn't repeat anymore. Then we can teach her to assess if it is important or trivial.

I try not to discourage dobbing - in fact I don't even call it that as it has negative connotations. Its informing me. Sometimes, just sometimes, they tell me something extremely important that I would not know otherwise. I don't wish to miss out on this valuable information so that I can avoid being told Harry took the Bakugan off Sam over and over again (not because she is on repeat, but because Haz loves "b-gons").

Hope this helps.

PS: I do not believe that you threw the object at your DD at all. When you become frustrated to the point that you throw something, you don't actually think about aim at all - just the anger release you will get from doing it. Thats why we need to keep the cool head because once again - crossfire is unpleasant.

[All-boys]

In our house the rule is "bleeding or dying other than that I dont need to know!"

Of course this is very general but its what I repeat to the boys when they come to me to tell tales. They usually walk away in a huff with me but obviously it wasnt important enough for me to know about.

[tan32]

I am wondering if this is the mormal cycle of a 5 yr old who starts school. My 5 yr old is a shocking dobber at the moment.
At school they get told to tell the teacher. so they do and then they come home and do the same.
I have had to tell my DS that if its not hurting him or someone else then i dont need to know. He has started o stop the nagging and will now come and tell me if its something i need to know... my 10 yr old also tends to follow suit and dob occasionaly, she is told the same if its not hurting you or someone else do i really need to know. I really dont think i need to know if someone is picking their nose

[tan32]

oh i just wanted to add though, that they are told that if anyone ever says dont tell your Mum and Dad or an adult that means they have to tell me straight away.

[missymoo84]

my 5 year old is a dobber too. And although sometimes it drives me bloody crazy, there have been many many times when it has been a great thing, stopped Ashton or Chase getting really hurt, or something similar.

I say go with it. If she dobs and it's something stupid tell her that it's not important and to go play. That's what I do anyways.