When Good Children Do Bad Things : Psychology: Positive reinforcement of desirable behavior is more effective than simply punishing undesirable behavior, says author Peter Williamson.

You can’t ignore your kids when they’re bad. But to have to pay attention to them while they’re being good, too? Won’t you ever get any peace?

We are warned by the experts that if we pay attention to our children only when they are misbehaving, they have to misbehave. Negative attention is better than no attention.

It’s hard to change.

“We’re so used to just getting on with the life of the family. When a child’s behavior is appropriate, you can get on to other things--do the wash, other chores,” psychologist Peter Williamson says. “And when the kid steps out of line, then you pay attention to him.”

The strategy of positive attention really works, says Williamson, author of “Good Kids, Bad Behavior.”

Frequently, though, parents don’t realize that it isn’t going to show results quickly. “Parents often don’t feel that immediate surge of success and think they aren’t getting any. Then they lose confidence in themselves,” Williamson says.

Say you are trying to get your children to leave you alone while you talk to a neighbor.

“You teach them something else to do--have certain activities to do while you’re busy,” Williamson says. “They may do it for a little while, but pretty soon, they’re going to say, ‘OK, what happens if I go back and bug her?’

“And that’s not a bad thing. They’re being little scientists. So two weeks after you’re into a program, all the stops come out and they just hit you with everything. And parents will say it’s not working. Well, that’s not true. That’s why it’s real important for parents to be able to talk themselves through things and get through the rough spots.”

Positive attention is especially important to children who are not responsive to “the normal modes of discipline--punishment or criticism,” Williamson says. “It isn’t a matter of just being nice or Pollyannaish about it. It’s a matter of paying attention to the kinds of behavior you want the child to learn: ‘I like what you did there,’ ‘You’re handling yourself really well.’ ”

Cheerleading won’t work with some children.

A thick-skinned, extroverted child, Williamson says, will respond with delight and pride to exclamations of “Great job! That was super!” But a more anxious, introverted child tends to shrink away from that kind of praise.

“Positive attention for them is reinforcing their sense of self-confidence,” he says. “It can be really low-key, even balanced with criticism: ‘It wasn’t perfect, but I really like the way you handled it.’ ”

The timeout technique works nicely in this scheme, but it’s often used incorrectly, says Williamson, who practices in Madison, Wis. A timeout (in which misbehavior is interrupted and the child is ordered to sit silently for a short time) has no deterrent value. But it allows parents to break the pattern of misbehavior and refocus the child’s activity.

“Say you’re paying lots of attention to the kids while they’re playing, and 4-year-old Jamie goes over and knocks over Jack’s block tower,” Williamson says. “That’s 10 seconds on the floor. He sits there; you do a silent count of 10 and pay a lot of attention to Jack.”

When the timeout is over, you redirect Jamie, Williamson says: “Timeout’s all done. Time to build blocks. OK, Jamie’s coming over to see what he’s going to do. He’s going to make something. Look at that, he’s got one, two, three, four--can he get that one up there?”

Redirecting is critical, he says, and especially important for preschoolers. “Don’t leave dead space,” he cautions.

Or suppose a tired child, waiting for dinner, has a tantrum. Tell him to take two minutes to calm down, Williamson says. “It’s not done as a punishment with a lot of anger. They go, settle themselves down, and it gives you a chance to go in there and tell them ‘You did a nice job.’ We don’t pay attention to the fact they got mad; we pay attention to the fact they settled themselves down,” he says.

Stick with it, says Williamson, and your view of the child’s behavior will change. “You get used to relating to the child as someone who’s evolving,” he says, instead of seeing the child as good or bad, depending on his current behavior.

So be ready to praise your kids for simply doing the things they ought to be doing, Williamson advises.

As your emphasis shifts away from the negative, he says, so will theirs, and you will be at (relative) peace.