Raising and Praising Boys - Couverture souple

One of the biggest lessons we have learnt in the last few decades is that it is valuable, important and effective to praise children. Children respond much better to encouragement than they do to punishment, which is why praising them is considered fundamental in helping them develop self-esteem and strong self-belief. However, the wrong kind of praise can do more harm than good, creating children who lose all sense of rational judgement and are too readily wrong-footed when they meet difficulty.

In this practical, common-sense guide, Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer shows parents why understanding and acknowledging boys' sensibilities is the key to knowing how to award their sons with the right sort of praise. Using insightful, accessible tips, she reveals:

- why boys need regular but small doses of positive feedback to prevent them from becoming distracted or losing focus in their work

- what makes the father/son relationship instrumental in ensuring boys receive the right praise

- why female approval may have less value in the eyes of young boys than male approval

Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer is the author of two parenting skills programmes and four bestselling practical books on parenting; all of which are published in the USA. She is a freelance journalist and writer in the UK, writing for leading national newspapers such as the London Times (parents page), The Independent (education features), the Observer (comment and focus pieces on social policy) and the Daily Telegraph (education). She has also contributed seminar papers on various aspects of children's mental health and learning to London University's Institute of Education and the Institute for Public Policy Research, a leading UK think tank.