Before you ask, we do not recommend rewarding your toddler with a bucketful of herring for cleaning his room. Nor do we suggest giving her salmon for sharing her toys, or crushed ice for using the potty.

SeaWorld marine mammal trainers who are also parents have long employed the strategies they use with whales, dolphins, sea lions, otters and walruses to the challenges of raising their own children. Like all parents, marine mammal trainers pick up parenting ideas from all around, including friends at work.

Among SeaWorld trainer Laura Surovik's co-workers are killer whales. "I have two kids in school and nine kids in the pool," Surovik said. "I feel like our killer whale family is an extension of my own family. Learning from Shamu continues to be a privilege for me. I consider it a gift and a gift gets even better when you share it with others. My hope is that as we share some of our positive techniques of shaping good behavior with our Shamu Family through the Web site, parents will be inspired to give it a try with their kids. Being positive is so much fun."

Reaching out to parents of young children is just one part of an early childhood initiative launched by SeaWorld today. The centerpiece of the campaign is a Web site – www.LearnWithShamu.com – that features parent-focused "webisodes" about common challenges like sharing and trying new foods. The five-minute segments feature SeaWorld trainers, whales and animation. The webisodes provide insights on behavior and training gathered over years spent perfecting training techniques for marine mammals and other animals in SeaWorld parks. The program focuses on children 1 to 5.

"SeaWorld is translating the lessons of 40 years spent building relationships with the ocean's top predator into something we hope is useful for parents," said Sheila Voss, Director of Education for SeaWorld's parent company, Busch Entertainment Corporation (BEC). "So many of our guests are intrigued and often perplexed at how our animal trainers work with our marine mammals. As parents ourselves, many of us at SeaWorld thought this may be a good way to answer the basic question while also expanding the conversation to something relevant to our guests' everyday lives."

Rewarding desired behavior is how SeaWorld trains its marine mammals, including killer whales like Shamu. Salmon, herring and crushed ice are a few of the hundreds of "reinforcers" or rewards given to the parks' whales as part of the training and husbandry process.

But the principles of positive reinforcement, if not the fishy rewards themselves, can be effective in other types of relationships too. The tools used by SeaWorld killer whale trainers are particularly useful for parents struggling to communicate with and shape the behavior of that most extraordinary of animals – the human child. Most of the reinforcers are different than those used by SeaWorld, though many kids would doubtless respond well to a reward of raw fish, particularly young boys.

Rewarding positive actions and behaviors is central to SeaWorld's marine mammal training philosophy. The techniques have been understood if not universally applied by parents throughout human history.

Child development experts, however, caution against focusing entirely on the consequences of behavior, and stress the importance of two-way communications in helping parents deal with behavior challenges in their kids.

"Naturally, there's a huge difference between training a whale and raising a child. But even in the most unlikely places, it's always fun to find unexpected reminders of the sorts of things we all know but sometimes don't stop to think about," said Dr. Shalom Fisch, president of MediaKidz Research & Consulting, a consulting firm that provides educational content development, hands-on testing, and writing for children's media.

"Praising successes, not expecting perfection the first time around...all of these are just as important with kids as with killer whales. Hopefully, though, kids make less of a mess in the living room," he said.

This initiative isn't the first time that SeaWorld has sought to translate the techniques used in training marine mammals to human interaction. SeaWorld's Thad Lacinak and Chuck Tompkins teamed with business writer and motivational speaker Ken Blanchard for a book called Whale Done that encouraged readers to rely on positive reinforcement as a management technique. Whale Done was one of the most successfully management books of the last decade, selling more than 500,000 copies in 18 languages.

LearnWithShamu.com is part of SeaWorld's education mission. More than 25 million people each year benefit from in-park, Web-based, outreach and distance learning programs administered by the parks' award-winning staff of educators. The program is part of an expansion of SeaWorld's education program into early childhood learning.

While the parenting webisodes featured on the Web site will help kick off this initiative, additional resources such as young child-friendly interactive games, hands-on activities and expertly developed classroom curriculum are soon to follow.

The initiative is intended to increase awareness of wildlife and environmental concepts and connections, to encourage a simple conservation ethic among small children, and to equip parents with the tools to shape their child's behavior through positive reinforcement.

"SeaWorld has always been a destination and resource for kids of all ages. But 'Learn with Shamu' has been created with focus on the youngest of our guests – those inquisitive and wondrous people ages 1 to 5," Voss said. "By sharing stories of positive relationships between animals and people, 'Learn with Shamu' aims to transform a child's natural fascination with animals into a desire to connect with and care for all the creatures, human and otherwise, in their lives."