My parents had their children when they were in their 20s and early 30s, while my aunt and uncle, who are five years younger, had their children when they were in their 30s and early 40s. My first cousins, as a result, are more than a decade younger than my siblings and me, and are only about a decade older than my children.

The upside of this is that my aunt and uncle can provide parenting advice to me that feels current. While they are a generation older than me, we seem to have met halfway when it comes to raising our children.

“The best piece of parenting advice I ever got — that seemed counterintuitive at first, but later began to feel natural — was that I should try to catch my kids when they’re doing something right, as opposed to when they’re doing something wrong,” my uncle, John Stossel, an anchor for ABC’s “20/20” and an opinion columnist for The New York Sun, said.

“What’s an example?” I asked. “Thank you for not interrupting me when I was on the phone,” he said.

Great advice. If you want your oldest child to be gentle with your youngest, you have a better chance of achieving that goal by overpraising the rare instance when you see tender behavior, than by constantly criticizing the persistent pinching or teasing.

“My 14-year-old son was so disorganized it was killing me,” a mother of three said. “And it didn’t matter how much I nagged — nothing seemed to get through, until one day I saw that in the one subject he loved, his work was beautifully organized. Not a paper was crumpled. Every assignment was handed in promptly. Instead of continually harassing him about the rest of his work, for a few weeks I just applauded his organization in this one subject. He actually figured it out. He realized that what he was doing in science class, he could do to all his subjects.”

My uncle’s shrewd recommendation reminded me of why overpraising our children is not the benign gaffe that many parents crack it up to be. Praise in many homes has become meaningless because it is doled out for insignificant accomplishments so often, in a hyperbolic pitch without a shred of relativity.

“This painting is unbelievable!” “You played like a champ!” “You are such an amazing friend.” Parental praise, these days, seems to know no bounds.

The problem is not just that our children know the painting isn’t unbelievable, or that they didn’t play like a champ, or that they’re actually adequate friends. In losing our credibility with our children, we have made it increasingly difficult to parent insightfully, in the way my uncle describes.

If you do manage to catch your child doing something great — but you’ve been over-praising for dozens of inconsequential acts — your constructive affirmation will barely be noticed.

My uncle gave me another worthy tidbit regarding praise. “A great soccer coach told me that the best way to get through to your kid was to offer five praises for every one criticism,” he said.

This reminded me of an article I read recently about the characteristics of successful marriages. A researcher, John Gottman, found that in happy marriages, spouses offer at least five praises or positive comments for every single criticism. Marriages begin to fail when the ratio falls below 5:1. (I fear I know more spouses who offer five criticisms for every one positive comment than the reverse. But I, thankfully, do not write a column about the difficulties of sustaining healthy marriages in this city.)

But does this ratio really apply to our children? Aren’t they being praised too much? My uncle pointed out that he felt this ratio was appropriate if you were trying to modify your child’s behavior or help him improve a specific skill.

For example? In soccer terms, a parent or coach could say, “Great pass. Good footwork. Keep up the energy. Way to hustle. Good teamwork. Now let’s talk about your defensive skills. You need to be more aware of who’s around you,” my uncle said.

Once more, this well-worn advice made me appreciate the importance of limiting our praise to times when it is legitimately warranted, as well as when it can be harnessed as a parental teaching tool. When it comes to praise, less is really more.

sarasberman@aol.com