The problem with reporting a little white lie is that no one is going to bend over backward to prove the lie. Furthermore, even if the little white lie indeed is found out, what point did the person reporting it make? Everyone lies occasionally. No one is going to investigate whether or not you really did get sick and that’s why you didn’t come to school, or a kid who says “yes grandma, I love the sweater you got for me” when in fact, the kid hates it. In these instances, the only person who is being harmed is the person doing the lying. Yes, you can argue that society as a whole ultimately suffers when someone tells a lie and gets away with it. Of course any kind of lying is wrong, but it isn’t in the OPs interest to be a “tattletale” as someone else put it. OTOH, reporting someone who is taking credit for the work of others, or more serious lies, isn’t being a tattletale, it’s whistleblowing, and it is important to report it.
As far as I am concerned, if Johnny says he was the president of the Rock Collectors club, are you really going to report him if he applies to Harvard? Maybe Johnny feels he doesn’t have enough good ECs to compete at Harvard. Maybe he is a bit underwhelming in real life, even though he is a great, smart student. I personally don’t think reporting Johnny for that kind of lie is worth it. If however Johnny claimed he organized a fundraiser for disabled kids and collected thousands of dollars, when in fact someone else did that, yes, that needs to be reported. You can’t go around being the policeman for the world. You have to make a distinction between what’s importsnt and what isn’t. I do not think reporting Johnny for claiming to be pres of,the Rock collectors club is worth it. His application will probsbly out itself in other ways and he wouldn’t get in. Even if it was my own kid applying, I wouldn’t do it, because it is petty. No one likes a tattletale.