NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children
By Po Bronson, Ashley Merryman
May 14, 2010
Being a relatively new parent, I can be a sucker for parenting books. And of the ones I’ve read, I can honestly say that every parent should read this one.
Most parenting books are mere opinion. When it came to sleep training, it was crazy how wide the spectrum was. Do I let him cry it out, Ferber-style? Do I pick him up at every whimper, a la Sears? The views were too often contradictory, and I didn’t know how to make heads or tails out of all the shouting. And the problem? They were all just opinion and anecdotal stories.
Nurture Shock isn’t. Think of it as The Tipping Point for parents. It’s primarily a research book, digested and regurgitated for the masses, and it can often be infuriating the lack of how-to’s. But it more than makes up for it in insight, backed by research, and often helps parents come to counter-intuitive conclusions. For example, want to make a racist kid? Don’t talk about race at all until their 9 years old, because that’s when their racial attitudes harden. Whoa. How many households out there do you think avoid the topic of race to keep things PC, in hopes that their kids won’t be prejudiced in any way? Well, according to the research, you’re on your way to raising racists.
Seriously, if you’re a parent, or often teach others how to parent, please pick up this book.
You can view this book's Amazon detail page by clicking the image above.
