Have you ever had this
experience?  Your child does some bad thing, in public or in front
of relatives of course, and someone gives you the “evil eye” and says
“Aren’t you going to do something about that?  Are you going to just
let her/him get away with it?!”

Aside from the judging,
unhelpful nature of the comment, what’s interesting about that to me is
that it highlights what I call an “old paradigm” of parenting.  The
best way to shape a child’s behavior doesn’t happen after they’ve done
something WRONG–it happens before & after they do something RIGHT.
 

We the parents truly need to plan ahead, identify the positive
behaviors we want to see more of, and work consistently to support, recognize
& reward our kids when they show us THOSE behaviors–not the bad
ones.

The ideas above, although not new, are newly presented
in my current favorite parenting book.  At this point it would make
sense to tell you the name of the book, but I’m not, because I think
the book title is misleading.  It should have been named “Parenting
101” or “What Every Parent Needs to Know About Shaping Behavior”, or “What
Science Tells Us about Parenting” (since the book’s methods are proven
to work, based on results from many, many different studies by many
different professional researchers.)  

But alas, they didn’t ask
my opinion about the name, so I’ve just had to make up my own:
“Behavior 201 for Parents”.  Anyway, I’m currently leading a book group
on it, and plan to start another one in April.   If you’re
interested in joining the book group, stay tuned, I’ll send out more
info shortly.

(PS.  Follow the link if you want more info on the book, or to know its real title.)  ;^)