Nurture Shock, the final review.
Chapter 8: Can Self-Control be Taught?
This chapter exemplifies my problem with the book. It reads all-in-all like the typical "Breakthrough in field X" you so often see in the popular press, but when you look deeper, it's not so clear it's any sort of breakthrough.
The chapter decribes a preschool ciricullum called "Tools of the Mind" an says it acheives phenomenal results. It makes a really great story, and as a parent makes you want to run out and get your kid some of it. A couple warning signs that it may not be quite as great as he says. First, he also talks about why it's so good (it does X and Y and Z), but he gives no evidence on these points.
Second, if it were so good, then why hasn't it displaced more traditional preschool curriculum? There often is resistance to good ideas that happen to be new, so I went to look for data. What I found is this:
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/early_ed/tools/
(Note that the same site does rate some other interventions in early childhood education more highly.) So, I'm inclined to believe the results he mentioned are over-hyped, or have more to do with the teachers than the curriculum.
Personally No useful parenting take-aways for me.
Chapter 9: Aggression.
Two things come up in this chapter. First, aggression in kids, whether physical or verbal, isn't about kids' acting without thinking. It's the other way around. Socially skilled kids use aggression (along with positive behaviors) to get what they want.
ETA: Second, the more "educational" children's TV shows kids watched, the more relational agression ("You can't play with us") they displayed. This was stronger than the effect between physically violent stuff (ie, Star Wars) and physical aggression. The reason may be that educational TV shows often are "Person X is mean to Y, but then X learns a lesson and they are all happy", and kids pick up on the mean-to-Y part without necessarily getting the overall lesson is to not be mean to Y.
Personally: No useful parenting lessons here. ETA: Actually, one useful one is to watch out for educational books & TV shows. of the form "Person X does bad stuff and then learns a lesson, and everyone is happy", because kids will learn the bad stuff.
Chapter 10: Why Alyssa talks and Hanna Doesn't.
This is a "How to talk to your children" chapter. The answer is to identify objects the kid is looking at, respond when the kid tries to talk, say things in that sing-song way parents use, and up until 15 months, move the object you're trying to label around in front of the kid's face. A one-sided converstation (something I'm prone to do) isn't terribly useful.
Again, I'm a little annoyed by the bad science displayed in this chapter. The book says "The measures taken at age three, of how long kids' average spoken sentences were, and how big their spoken vocabulary was, storngly predicted third-grade language skills" Let's suppose this is true. (Though you'd need some explanation as to why this statement doesn't contradict the IQ-tests-in-preschoolers-are-bunk chapter.)
I can think of several different reasons this is true (both nature and nurture-based). But the author implies it's because parents aren't talking to their infants right. This is an especially silly conclusion since just before this he said that children who had environmental language deficits (they were adopted or whatever) catch up to their peers in three years.
Personally: I need to be better about speaking to Erik clearly. I need to stop saying so many useless things, and start being useful about naming the objects he's looking at.
His concluding chapter: After some rambling, he makes two good points:
(1) Children aren't adults. This is easy to forget in many circumstances. (As a personal example, when Helen was toddler throwing a tantrum, I used to remind myself that for her, it really was that bad.)
(2) Good qualities and bad qualities often go hand-in-hand. (Lying requires a certain sophistication. Good social skills mean aggression as well as more positive social activity.)
My recommendation: Read this book with some caution. There's good information in it, but the authors aren't careful about telling you when they are standing on thin ice. Also, it's buried in filler (it opens talking abut Cary Grant, for example). Think Newsweek instead of the Economist. Also, those who are cheap will likely be annoyed if they pay money for this book, since much of the text of his articles is available elsewhere.
This chapter exemplifies my problem with the book. It reads all-in-all like the typical "Breakthrough in field X" you so often see in the popular press, but when you look deeper, it's not so clear it's any sort of breakthrough.
The chapter decribes a preschool ciricullum called "Tools of the Mind" an says it acheives phenomenal results. It makes a really great story, and as a parent makes you want to run out and get your kid some of it. A couple warning signs that it may not be quite as great as he says. First, he also talks about why it's so good (it does X and Y and Z), but he gives no evidence on these points.
Second, if it were so good, then why hasn't it displaced more traditional preschool curriculum? There often is resistance to good ideas that happen to be new, so I went to look for data. What I found is this:
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/early_ed/tools/
(Note that the same site does rate some other interventions in early childhood education more highly.) So, I'm inclined to believe the results he mentioned are over-hyped, or have more to do with the teachers than the curriculum.
Personally No useful parenting take-aways for me.
Chapter 9: Aggression.
Two things come up in this chapter. First, aggression in kids, whether physical or verbal, isn't about kids' acting without thinking. It's the other way around. Socially skilled kids use aggression (along with positive behaviors) to get what they want.
ETA: Second, the more "educational" children's TV shows kids watched, the more relational agression ("You can't play with us") they displayed. This was stronger than the effect between physically violent stuff (ie, Star Wars) and physical aggression. The reason may be that educational TV shows often are "Person X is mean to Y, but then X learns a lesson and they are all happy", and kids pick up on the mean-to-Y part without necessarily getting the overall lesson is to not be mean to Y.
Personally: No useful parenting lessons here. ETA: Actually, one useful one is to watch out for educational books & TV shows. of the form "Person X does bad stuff and then learns a lesson, and everyone is happy", because kids will learn the bad stuff.
Chapter 10: Why Alyssa talks and Hanna Doesn't.
This is a "How to talk to your children" chapter. The answer is to identify objects the kid is looking at, respond when the kid tries to talk, say things in that sing-song way parents use, and up until 15 months, move the object you're trying to label around in front of the kid's face. A one-sided converstation (something I'm prone to do) isn't terribly useful.
Again, I'm a little annoyed by the bad science displayed in this chapter. The book says "The measures taken at age three, of how long kids' average spoken sentences were, and how big their spoken vocabulary was, storngly predicted third-grade language skills" Let's suppose this is true. (Though you'd need some explanation as to why this statement doesn't contradict the IQ-tests-in-preschoolers-are-bunk chapter.)
I can think of several different reasons this is true (both nature and nurture-based). But the author implies it's because parents aren't talking to their infants right. This is an especially silly conclusion since just before this he said that children who had environmental language deficits (they were adopted or whatever) catch up to their peers in three years.
Personally: I need to be better about speaking to Erik clearly. I need to stop saying so many useless things, and start being useful about naming the objects he's looking at.
His concluding chapter: After some rambling, he makes two good points:
(1) Children aren't adults. This is easy to forget in many circumstances. (As a personal example, when Helen was toddler throwing a tantrum, I used to remind myself that for her, it really was that bad.)
(2) Good qualities and bad qualities often go hand-in-hand. (Lying requires a certain sophistication. Good social skills mean aggression as well as more positive social activity.)
My recommendation: Read this book with some caution. There's good information in it, but the authors aren't careful about telling you when they are standing on thin ice. Also, it's buried in filler (it opens talking abut Cary Grant, for example). Think Newsweek instead of the Economist. Also, those who are cheap will likely be annoyed if they pay money for this book, since much of the text of his articles is available elsewhere.