Good Parenting

I will call it A-/B+ parenting. These parents care about their children; and they spend a lot of time and effort trying to raise their children to be good people. But they do misguided things like praising their children for sharing.

Praise undermines what they hope their children will learn. More generall, rewards and punishments just control behavior, THEY DO NOT TEACH. Misguided is a key word here; these parents do not receive good advice about teaching their children.

They deserve better. Not only do their efforts fail, but those same efforts make parenting less fun than it could be (and should be). Childhood becomes less fun too, so we can feel sorry for the children too.

Quick Advice

The short advice for the teaching parent is this. First, rewards and punishments control your child's immediate behavior when you are present. They do not teach, and they will have little or no effect when the rewards and punishments are gone.

Instead, love them, trust them more to direct their own learning, and spend more time encouraging and clapping. Also, set a good example.