Gently! Haha a lot of new players tend to always beat the crap outa that thing which ends up throwing their guitar out of tune. Try letting a chord ring out and then gently flutter the whammy.. its cool to end of some songs like this. If your a big whammy fan i'd check out an original German made Floyd Rose tremolo... (my fav!) Those things never go out of tune.
RE: I got my first electric guitar!