I'm a little late on this reply, but I'll explain my philosophy for what it's worth. It has apparently been effective with my daughter (who is now nine years old).

Don't treat your child "like a child", treat them like a small person. What I mean by this hopefully will come through in my other points.

Just like every person is a little different, so it is for children. Don't be afraid to try other techniques if something isn't working for your child. A recent example of this in my case is helping my daughter with spelling. It took us a while to determine the best way for learn in this particular case.

If I need my daughter to do something, or I tell her no, I always try to provide an explanation as to why. This isn't easy, but so far it has been fruitful.

By the same token, she can always ask why and I always try to provide an explanation. Now that she's older, if she has a question about why something happens or works, we try to investigate it together by various means.

Don't be afraid to explain complicated concepts to your child, even at a very early age. My wife thought it was pretty funny that I was trying to explain that the string on a balloon is a tether and why you might call something a tether rather than a string. Early on it's not clear how much they absorb, but it seems to have worked (at least for my daughter).

Always let them know that how their opinions/feelings are important, even if you have to explain that they have not understood something correctly. In other words, don't just dismiss what they think or feel just because they are children. I try to use these as teaching moments. Occasionally you will be the one being taught. I think this concept in particular has made my daughter an outgoing person, and one who generally thinks about things before she speaks (well, for a nine year old anyway). One good example of this was when she was five or six, we had some pretty extreme flooding in our area. There was a news story on the local news station about one of the rescuers themselves needing to be rescued during an operation. I chuckled about that and pointed it out to my wife. My daughter who was sitting next to me made this observation: "Maybe he's new". I had to agree with her, once I stopped laughing. My point is she made an astute observation that I had not considered, and one that was extremely plausible.

Back to always providing an explanation, sometimes I don't say no, in particular to activities where she could be injured. Instead, I try to get her to analyze the situation (and help if necessary) to see if she can accomplish her goal in a safer manner. For example, I have a four wheel cart to move stuff around on. She wanted to ride it like a surfboard in the driveway. By asking her what would happen if she falls, she saw the wisdom in wearing knee and elbow pads, gloves, and her bicycle helmet (which she had for riding her scooter). I don't doubt the falls on the scooter while wearing pads helped her make her decision. By the same token, one day when I came home from work, her hands and chin were scraped up. She was reluctant to tell me what happened, but I got her to tell me that she got on the cart without her pads and fell off. I told her that's why I thought she should wear the pads (and that she wasn't in trouble). Kids will be kids after all.

Try to expose you children to new things. When you do, make sure there is some interaction. For example, just this week, I got my daughter to start doing a little astronomy. I recently bought a dobsonian mount telescope because it would be easier for her to use. She wasn't too interested until I told her that she was the one who would be pointing the telescope. I showed her what to do and let her point it at whatever she wanted to look at, helping a little along the way. Now she wants to get out whenever it's clear, despite the bugs (summertime...).

Don't be worried what other parents think. Feel free to listen to their advice. Also feel free to ignore it.

I don't know if any of this helps you or not, and I certainly have forgotten to mention some things, but it's worked for us so far. I can't say for certain (obviously) that going this route has made my daughter the person she is. All I can say is these are some of the concepts my wife and I have applied and that my daughter is an intelligent, thoughtful, outgoing person who has made me a better person just by knowing her.