Standing up with self-control is the final of the five key CARES skills underlying Responsive Classroom practice that help build positive proactive attributes in children both socially and academically. The other four are cooperation, assertion, responsibility and empathy.

The ability to control and regulate feelings, thoughts, and actions are at the core of cognitive growth and logical understanding, academic learning and achievement, social and moral reasoning, and positive behavior. We learn for social reasons. We learn self-control in order to get along, to learn things from each other, to navigate our world, to build a place for ourselves, our family. Children learn early on that getting along and practicing self-control requires understanding and following certain rules.

For very young children, understanding rules is often heavily influenced by other-regulation, a term used by child psychologist Lev Vygotsky and his colleagues to describe what happens when one person is regulating another – as when a mother teaches a toddler how do something independently by giving her directions and alternatives (“You can wash your dishes in this tub and dry them with this towel like Mommy’s.”).

In preschool, kindergarten, and the early elementary grades, children spend a good deal of time other-regulating each other as they interpret the rules of games and the roles they take in them.

• “You’re the wicked witch and I’m the scarecrow guy. That’s what you promised!”
• “Go over there. That’s where all the ponies are supposed to be. You’re a pony.”
• “You’re out. It bounced twice. I counted.”

Tattling is one of the ways children exercise other-regulation. By tattling, children are letting teachers or playground aides know that they understand the rules; they are other-regulating by proxy, if you will. Tattling, therefore, is an important precursor to greater self-control. A good response is to tell the child that you’re glad they know the rules, and to repeat the rule to them: “Brian, I hear that you know the rule about one bounce in four square. Good for you.” Usually that’s enough to send the child happily back to the game. Some children, still wanting your other- or outside-regulation, will say, “Aren’t you going to do something about it?” You might respond, “I’ll review the rules with everyone at the end of recess today. Thanks for helping.”

It’s important, of course, for children from preschool on to learn the difference between tattling and reporting a problem that requires adult attention. Teach them that tattling is telling adults about ordinary conflicts, such as kids not always sharing, picking teams unfairly, and making up their own rules in a game, and that students don’t always have to tell an adult about these. But explain clearly that if the situation involves danger or injury, hurting someone physically or emotionally, or repeatedly scaring someone – in other words, bullying – then they must get adult help immediately, “As fast as your little feet can get you there,” I would tell them.

Meanwhile, it’s important for us adults to know the difference between developmentally appropriate other-regulation and inappropriate other-control. Examples of the latter include telling other kids they have to do something or else they are going to get a punch or be pushed down, herding a child into a corner of the playground, and keeping another child out of a game through verbal intimidation. Inappropriate other-control is a potential early warning sign of bullying behavior that should be addressed promptly.

Self-regulation or self-control is an essential life skill for independent learning and living as children gradually move away from the watchful eye of adults over the course of their journey into adulthood. Other-regulation, too, must be a strong companion on this journey as classmates and friends learn to stand up for each other as teammates and able rule followers in heated competition and the often difficult social struggles of adolescence and young adulthood.