Problem: You daughter is a tattletale. She’ll stop mid-play and run over to tell you, “She took my car!” Your first instinct is to say, “Sweetie, don’t tattle. Just ask her to give it back.”

Then after preschool one day she says, “That boy always hits me.” Your response? “Tell your teacher if someone hits you.”

In other words, tattle. You’re confused. She’s confused.

Solution: “This is along the lines of, ‘No kid drags her baby blanket down the aisle when she gets married,”‘ says Parenting magazine’s senior editor, Deborah Skolnik. “At some point, they outgrow it.”

Meanwhile, realize why your child is tattling. “Kids (age) 3 or 4 have a very rigid sense of right and wrong,” Skolnik says. “It’s their way of saying, ‘Hey, look at me! I know the rules!'”

To combat this, make sure you give your child plenty of attention for nontattling behavior, and not a lot of attention – good or bad – for tattling. “You just say, ‘You’re right. He shouldn’t have done that. But that’s something you can work out for yourself. Just tell him you’d like a turn,”‘ Skolnik says.

If your child is 6 or older, you can talk about the consequences of tattling. It is important, though, to instruct your child to tell a grown-up about anything that makes him or her uncomfortable (including hitting)