Parenting expert and psychologist Dr Carole Sutton, associate directorof the Unit for Parenting Studies at De Montfort University inLeicester, is urging parents to apply the well-known 'five a day' sloganfor eating fruit and vegetables to giving positive feedback andpraise.
Dr Sutton told Nursery World that many young children are often confusedabout how to behave.
She said the maxim would act as 'a prompt to parents to remember to saypositive things to their child.' From her experience working with agroup of mothers in Leicester she had found that parents were 'genuinelynot told that it's important to praise children'.
'Parents don't realise that they need to pay attention to goodbehaviour. We tend to assume children will behave well most of the time,but attention to misbehaviour reinforces bad behaviour. Many"misbehaviours" are learned.'
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