Until now I have been very heavy handed with praise, almost in a backlash against my own upbringing where praise was so rare. I've gone OTT on positive reinforcement. I'm currently reading Unconditional Parenting and it's an eye opener. He could be writing about me personally when he describes the kind of adult bred by a reward/punishment upbringing, and my DD has become SO incredibly helpless in the last couple of months - a behaviour AK predicts will be the result of over-praising. The question I have now is how do I deal with this? After 2 years of constant praising interlaced with the occassional time-out/reward/bribe do I just stop cold turkey? When I ask DD to put on her shoes - a task she's more than capable of - and she starts whining "mummy do it, Lola can't do it", which happens many times a day over various tasks she is able to do - what do I do? I've tried explaining to her that I know she can do it herself but she just gets more and more high-pitched in her cries that she can't do it (whatever it may be). Please can anyone advise?