Next to love, one of the most important things you can give your child is encouragement.

Although this sounds like a very funny comparison, I learnt how effective encouragement is when I when I was much, much younger; my mother used to breed, show and train Golden Retrievers. Throughout the litters we had many boisterous puppies and mum would always tell me - "They don't know what you are telling them so use your tone of voice and they will learn."

By using a positive, encouraging and warm tone of voice, your child will know she is doing the right thing - it must be very reassuring when you don't yet know how to communicate with words - but you can understand with tone. She learns quicker what is right and wrong.

How do you encourage your child? Do you have some examples where encouragement has or hasn't worked for you?