The thing that makes that one praise at the table meaningful at all is the fact that there had been dozens of times the kids behaved just as well, or mostly as

The thing that makes that one praise at the table meaningful at all is the fact that there had been dozens of times the kids behaved just as well, or mostly as well, but the parents choose to not make a big deal about it. The same argument works for negative reinforcement as well. The most convincing argument I have heard about avoiding harsh rising of children has nothing to do with the intrinsic rights o kids. Instead, it points out that one day, not that far away, you may find your teenager consuming drugs, or engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse, or commiting petty crime; and if by then you have not left yourself enough room to escalate short of corporal punishment (or not even that) then you might find yourself in a fight that you cannot win a hormone loaded young person that never learned to respect you and surely won't start today. So, I think this has a lot to do with signal to noise ratio. Whether you praise or you demean, the point is to make it rare enough to be noticed when it happens. I did not always do it that way, but I have got better results when I began following that advice.