Helena Bonham Carter

Helena Bonham Carter on learning to be a parent:

"'Every child knows what they want; it’s your job to tell them what they need.'...

...'You learn these skills and there are three main ones: Descriptive praise, preparing for success and reflective listening. Descriptive praise really works. It’s not evaluative — ‘you’re doing great, well done’ – instead it’s praising, with real precision, the absence of negative behavior. I’ve got a real problem with whining, for instance, so when Billy isn’t whining I say, ‘You’re not whining, that’s really helpful.’ You give them positive attention and then they start to crave it. The key to this is you get out of the parenting habit of rewarding bad behavior with attention. When they are naughty, you actually turn away and they realize very quickly that to get your time and engagement they need to do something different. It absolutely works. Billy is lapping it up. And as a parent, you become happier because you’re observing all these good things about your child, if you’re being specific about what they’ve done — ‘You folded that so well and that’s really helpful.'"