Hi everyone, back again for an entirely unrelated issue. My 5yo has a couple of very worrying behaviors surfacing, and I don't know if other kids have gone through this, or if he needs to see someone asap.
1.) He sees himself as a gatekeeper for his classmates' behavior.
I don't know where this came from or when it started exactly. But lately he's been tattling on his friends at school over every perceived behavior infraction. "(Classmate) said a bad word in front of me today, so I told the teacher" "I told on (other classmate) today because they weren't doing their class work." But turns around and is terribly upset when the same thing happens to him. He's already lost 2 friends over it, but that doesn't matter to him. At home he tries to tattle on my partner to me over similar things - "Mommy, J said a bad word outside when she hit her head" "Mommy, J was hiding a chocolate bar from you." Did any of your children do something similar? Do they grow out of it?
2.) We were talking about the possibility of getting a family cat. Over the past couple of days he's been repeatedly saying "What if we put a leash on the cat's collar and took it outside? And it didn't walk, so we just dragged it across the ground by its neck? Wouldn't that be funny?" Needless to say, getting a cat has been put on hold indefinitely. However, we have a rabbit now and he's never shown any amount of malice or aggression towards her. I'm not sure if he's saying it to get a reaction, or if he's genuinely amused by the idea of torturing this cat.
1.) He sees himself as a gatekeeper for his classmates' behavior.
I don't know where this came from or when it started exactly. But lately he's been tattling on his friends at school over every perceived behavior infraction. "(Classmate) said a bad word in front of me today, so I told the teacher" "I told on (other classmate) today because they weren't doing their class work." But turns around and is terribly upset when the same thing happens to him. He's already lost 2 friends over it, but that doesn't matter to him. At home he tries to tattle on my partner to me over similar things - "Mommy, J said a bad word outside when she hit her head" "Mommy, J was hiding a chocolate bar from you." Did any of your children do something similar? Do they grow out of it?
2.) We were talking about the possibility of getting a family cat. Over the past couple of days he's been repeatedly saying "What if we put a leash on the cat's collar and took it outside? And it didn't walk, so we just dragged it across the ground by its neck? Wouldn't that be funny?" Needless to say, getting a cat has been put on hold indefinitely. However, we have a rabbit now and he's never shown any amount of malice or aggression towards her. I'm not sure if he's saying it to get a reaction, or if he's genuinely amused by the idea of torturing this cat.