A certain phrase once crept out of Southern California and made its way to the UK. It made my blood boil: ‘They’re a good child who’s done a bad thing.’

How it made me cringe. I hated it. I railed against it. This was the most awful bit of New Age PC-speak I had ever heard. But now I have to apologize. I have taken this one on board and, while I may never actually say ‘They’re a good child who’s done a bad thing’, I do endorse the sentiment. You see, there are no bad children. Yes, there may be children who do bad things. There may be children who do appalling things. But they are not bad. No matter how naughty my children are, they are not bad. They may make me climb the walls with their behaviour at times but when they have gone to sleep and you peep in at them, they are angelic little cherubs, utterly good, utterly perfect. Yes, what they do during the day, to get my dander up, may be naughty, may be bad behaviour, but they remain intrinsically good.

The only reason the behaviour is bad is because they are exploring the world and learning where the boundaries are. They have to make mistakes in order to find out what’s what. It is only natural and quite normal.

The same goes for any other behaviour that is out of the ordinary. There are no clumsy children, only clumsy behaviour. There are no stupid children, only stupid conduct. There are no spiteful children, only spiteful acts. There are no selfish children, only selfish actions.

They don’t know any better and it is your job to teach them, educate them, help them, encourage them. You start off on the wrong foot if you start off believing they are bad. You’re almost bound to fail if you believe them to be faulty. You can’t change a bad child but you can change bad behaviour. If you believe the child is good, you’re on to a winner immediately. All you’ve got to do is change the behaviour and that is an attainable goal.

It is awfully detrimental to say to a child, ‘You are a bad child’. It sets something up in their mind that is hard to shift. Better to say, ‘You’ve done a naughty thing’, or ‘You’ve been naughty’. This they can do something about. But if you tell them they are bad, there is nothing they can do about that and it affects them.