About book Nurture Shock: New Thinking About Children (2009)
I really enjoyed this book. Very thorough and intense, yes. But I really enjoyed the way it was written. Bronson takes studies that have already been done, and makes them easier to understand and appreciate. By adding his (or Ashley's) own experiences, you can really get a feel for a real parents gain from this book. I enjoyed this book, and plan on picking it back up when it's my time to parent. The premise of this book is interesting and humbling: basically our intuition about raising children sometimes leads more to their protection than to their success. We should turn to science to understand the complexities of child-rearing and not (always) intuition.I enjoyed the information presented in the book. It was well-written, based on science but not too drawn out, and cutting-edge without being so controversial as to border on unbelievable.Some of the things I found intriguing:--Praise for children can backfire. "I am smart, the kids reasoning goes, I don't need to put out effort. Expending effort become stigmatized - it's public proof that you can't cut it on your natural gifts." "Excessive praise also distorts children's motivation; they begin doing thins merely to hear the praise, losing sight of intrinsic enjoyment."--Lack of sleep in children and teenagers has huge effects that are often underestimated. "The performance gap caused by an hour's difference in sleep was bigger than the gap between a normal fourth-grader and a normal sixth-grader... a slightly sleepy sixth-grader will perform in class like a mere fourth-grader." Also, there is a connection between sleep deprivation and obesity, due to the processing of insulin during slow-wave sleep!--Race become an issue even if a child is in a very diverse environment/school; thus, the concept should be addressed directly and before 3rd grade. "Kids are developmentally prone to in-group favoritism... However, it takes years before their cognitive abilities allow them to successfully use more than one attribute to categorize anything... Once a child identifies someone as most closely resembling himself, the child likes that person the most." "The more diverse the school, the more the kids self-segregate by race and ethnicity within the school."--IQ tests for young children often determine class placement and instruction for years of their education, but are not accurate at that young of an age. "No current test or teacher ratings system, whether used alone or in combination on such young kids, meets a reasonable standard of confidence to justify a long-term decision. Huge numbers of great kids simply can't be 'discovered' so young."--Teens literally cannot be rational and excited at the same time, leading to high risk-taking. "In abstract situations, teens can evaluate risks just like adults... But in exciting real life circumstances, this rational part of the brain gets overridden by the reward center." Also, teens arguing with parents is a sign of respect. Unbending rules lead to teens just breaking them without arguing, but well-placed discussions that make the teen feel heard results in some arguing and some respect.--An emerging curriculum for preschoolers and kindergarteners called Tools of the Mind is making huge strides in teaching children self-discipline. It's based on play, focusing on complex make-believe scenarios and writing play-plans. "During playtime, children learn basic developmental building blocks necessary for later academic success." "Children are routinely asked to check and score their own work against answer sheets, and are always buddied up with a partner, checking each other's work "even in preschool"... It's crucial for children to develop an awareness of how well they're doing and when their work is completed successfully. This sensitivity is required... for concentration to be increased." "The predictive values of self-discipline in many cases are better than those of IQ scores. In simpler words, being disciplined is more important than being smart."--The way adults respond to baby babble leads to earlier language acquisition and is more important than the amount of talking or words that a baby hears. Thus, Baby Einstein videos are useless. "What mattered was, if the infant initiated, whether the mom responded... the baby's brain learns that the sounds coming out of his mouth affect his parents and get their attention - that voicing is important, not meaningless. Second, a child needs to associate an object with a word, so the word has to be heard just as the infant is looking at it or grabbing it."Until children are eighteen months old, they can't make out nouns located in the middle of a sentence."--We need to put aside some assumption in child-rearing. "The first assumption is that things work in children in the same way that they work in adults... The second assumption is that positive traits necessarily oppose and ward off negative behavior in children... Victoria Talwar taught us that a child's dishonesty was a sign of intelligence and social savvy. Nancy Darling explained how teens' deception was almost a necessary part of developing one's adolescent identity. Laurie Kramer's research showed us how blind devotion to fairness can derail sibling relationships."
Do You like book Nurture Shock: New Thinking About Children (2009)?
Empirical evidence for strategies in raising kids (toddler to teen). Lots to think about.
—marlene2011
Wish I had read this years ago! Great research on the problems of permissive parenting.
—nee
Had some interesting and compelling ideas about kids' development.
—kiki02
Really interesting read and justifies my hatred of Arthur
—jojo16
