"I'll tell Mom!"

One of the most effective weapons my eldest has against her younger sister is the semi-idle threat. "I'll tell Mom!" gets repeated more often than pretty much anything else that comes out of Horse's mouth. Quite frankly, that drives me batty.

First of all, if the whole goal is to convince your sibling to act in the manner in which you wish him or her to act, then saying "I'll tell Mom" loud enough for Mom to hear kind of renders the whole issue obsolete when Mom starts scolding you for trying to blackmail your sibling. "I'll tell Mom unless you go over there." "I'll tell Mom you're bothering me unless you share your [insert toy name here]." "I'll tell Mom unless you stop breathing my air." "I'll tell Mom if you don't leave me alone until I graduate from college." (That last one is particularly laughable coming from an elementary school student.) None of those are effective when Mom hears you, scolds you for trying to drag her down into your muck, and tells you to figure out a way of resolving the issue yourself.

I have this mental image of my girls all grown up and still living at home at the ripe old ages of ninety-seven and one hundred, and still trying to rat each other out to a (still quite spry, at least in my imagination) one hundred twenty-six year old me. "I'll tell Mom if you don't share your stockpile of Depends with me" just doesn't have the same ring to it, but I truly wonder if there are siblings out there who have such inane conversations.

Little does Horse know, but there will come a point in time when she will realize she taught her sister a little too effectively about how to tattle, or more accurately, how to threaten to tattle. Horse will have trained Rooster how to be a blackmailer, and whether the offense is true or not will be irrelevant. "I'll tell Mom you snuck out of the house last night unless you drive me to the mall." "I'll tell Mom I caught you smoking at school unless you do my math homework for me." "I'll tell Mom you're planning on running away with your boyfriend unless you give me a hundred bucks." At some point, Rooster will fight back. It will be an epic battle between the blackmailers.

Lucky for my kidlets, they have a mother who is willing to teach them as much as she knows about dealing with blackmailing siblings. My advice is to say, "Go ahead and tell her." If the threat in question is a lie, invariably the liar will be found out and in serious trouble. If it is the truth, being able to fess up, apologize, and make amends will set the misbehaving kidlet free.

I am truly curious which of my girls will comprehend that lesson first. I just hope it's learned before any of us has a need for Depends.