NurtureShock: New Thinking about Children by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman
Bronson and Merryman debunk many incorrect, yet firm parenting beliefs with solid evidence in readable terms. There are extensive notes and selected sources and references at the end. I highly recommend this book to parents. Here’s a sampling of the interesting points from the book:
Chapter 1: The Inverse Power of Praise – Constantly praising your children, calling them smart, “does not prevent them from underpreforming. It might actually be causing it” (p 13). General and abundant praise discourages a child from trying anything challenging. “Expending effort becomes stigmatized – it’s public proof that you can’t cut it on your natural gifts” (p 15). Instead, give specific praise for hard work and emphasis the process rather than the outcome. The mind is a muscle. Challenge it and it will become stronger. Flatter it and it will turn to Jello.
I believe this goes hand-in-hand with competition. Oft praised kids are so afraid to loose that they often quit or never even try. That’s a sure way to raise a spineless kid who will be unable to handle life’s many difficulties as an adult. Failure is a part of life. It’s okay to learn about it as a child and to help your child deal with it.
Chapter 3: Why White Parents Don’t Talk about Race – White parents often refrain from talking about race with their children, wanting them to grow up color-blind. In actuality, during the period “of our children’s lives when we imagine it’s most important to not talk about race is the very developmental period when children’s minds are forming their first conclusions about race” (p 55).
The authors also point out evidence that desegregation in schools has not had the desired effect on elementary and high school students. The idea that immersing a student in a diverse environment will result in a better understand of race and diverse friendships assumes positive interaction. In reality, “increased opportunities to interact are also, effectively, increased opportunities to reject each other. And that is what’s happening” (p 61).
The solution, talk to your children about race while they are young (prior to second grade). Don’t remain silent! Read picture books to them that include or star black or diverse characters such as Twas the Night Before Christmas by Melodye Rosales. This version features a black Santa.
Chapter 10: Why Hannah Talks and Alyssa Doesn’t – Baby DVDs (Baby Einstein not The Little Mermaid) and CDs don’t work. Disembodied voices that don’t interact with your child might as well be blabbering, because your child isn’t absorbing any of it. “They absolutely do learn from a live, human teacher” (p 202). To help your child get a head start with language (not a guarantee of future brilliance but a head start), respond to your child’s blabbering with caresses, kisses, or some other sign of affection. Before 15 months, use motionese (moving and object while naming it) and multiple speakers to reinforce vocabulary.
I was delighted to hear this because a founding component of our Library’s popular baby program, Mother Goose, is to use motion, repetition, rhyming and group learning to help babies develop early literacy skills. I have a Mother Goose program tomorrow. I will take a video and post it here to show you what we do.
Also, don’t over do it. Baby brains need play time, a break, just as much as adults do.
Summer 2009 Wrap Up
This is a list of books I read this summer but didn’t have the time or inclination to review in detail. So this will be brief:
Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi – A work of historical fiction that won the Newbery in 2003. Crispin is a young boy whose mother has just died. He is soon on the run (accused of a crime he did not commit) being declared a wolf’s head (meaning anyone may kill him). The secret to his sudden fall from obscurity lies in the identity of his father. A great read but not a favorite, if you know what I mean. I hate the cover! I think it has been a turn off for a lot of young patrons, who might otherwise gravitate toward it as the language is very accessible.
Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen – Not my favorite Dessen but an okay read. Clearly one of her earlier books. I was dying to know if Michael’s parents replied to Scarlett’s letter. Dessen certainly has a hang up when it comes to Mother/Daughter relationships. Regarding teen boys, they have ranged from the wonderful (Along for the Ride and Just Listen) to average (Someone Like You) to terrible (Dreamland) in nature. It was satisfying that our heroine, Halley, didn’t end up with the stereotypical loner but that her experiences shed some light on the relationship between Scarlett and her deceased boyfriend (aka father of her child).
The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by David Kessler – You wouldn’t believe how you are being manipulated by the restaurant industry. Fat, sugar and salt (the three points of the compass) combine to trick your mind into eating more and more and more food you do not need. What’s worse, they stick healthy sounding names (like Spinach Dip) on the dishes to mislead you. Read this book. Take back control!
How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
I haven’t posted a book review in a couple days… and that usually means I’m reading nonfiction!
I picked up How We Decide because it was on the NY Times best seller list and because it had a cute cover. I’m very glad I did. Highly readable, Lehrer takes the author on a journey through our minds, uncovering the process behind our routine and spur-of-the-moment, life-saving (or condemning) decision making.
Lehrer begins by debunking Plato’s theory that the brain is divided in two separate spheres (the rational side is the charioteer while the emotional side is the wild horses pulling the chariot). “One the one hand, humans are part animal, primitive beasts stuffed full of primitive desires. And yet, humans are also capable of reason and foresight, blessed with the divine gift of rationality” (p 10).
Lehrer counters, “What we discover when we look at the brain is that the horses and charioteer depend upon each other. If it weren’t for our emotions, reason wouldn’t exist at all” (p 13).
Through a series of accounts, Lehrer reveals incidents where emotion plays a key role in either benefiting lives or destroying them. He stresses preventing the onset of panic during new, life-threatening situations but relying on your gut during routine operations when neural pathways pick up on divergences faster than our rational brains.
Sound confusing? It is, but Lehrer lays it out so beautifully that I was able to follow along easily, often gripping my chair during the story-telling parts. The brain is an amazing thing.
What’s the Weather Inside? by Karma Wilson
The cover grabbed me and I’m glad I flipped through this amusing collection of poetry by the author of Bear Snores On. As all baseball fans know, April marks the beginning of a new baseball season and it’s national poetry month. How better to start things off than with a silly baseball poem:
Fly ball, high ball,
sailin’-through-the-sky-ball.
Why-oh-why-did-you-
have-to-hit-my-eye ball!
I posted this on our bulletin board right outside the bathroom (with some baseball picture books and some Dan Gutman books). I have to have something read while I’m using or waiting for the restroom. hahahaha. In fact, I should totally get this for my apartment! Just a fun book!
The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman
I read non-fiction intermittently when a good title catches my eye or I hear about a book on NPR. This book came to my attention while I was browsing the New York Times best seller list. It reminded me of the type of forecasting I learned about during the Mid-Atlantic Library Future’s Conference in May 0f 2007. Ray Kurzweil and Bob Treadwayspecifically touched on processes similar to those used by Friedman to predict future events.
Friedman begins by closing the door on the European Age and the dawn of the American Age (the 21st century). His mantra: Expect the unexpected. China will fragment and therefore exclude it from being a major player in the 21st century. Japan, Poland, and Turkey will emerge as threats to the United States and require monitoring. The battleground for late 21st century war will take place in space.
All of Freidman’s geopolitical forecasting is founded on a handful of statements. First, that “the inherent power of the United States coupled with its geographic position makes the United States the pivital actor of the twenty-first century” (p 5). The U.S. has access to both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with naval bases around the world as well as a presence in space.
Secondly, “the United States doesn’t need to win wars. It needs to simply disrupt things so the other side can’t build up sufficient strength to challenge it” (p 5). The current U.S. – Jihadist war, for example, has effectively kept the Islamic world fragmented. A unified enemy is much harder to defeat.
And finally, the United States owes much of its current power to its well armed and advanced global navy. The future of its power will reside in advancements in space. “Where humanity goes, war goes. And since humanity will be going into space, there will be war in space” (p 183).
Backing Friedman’s forecast for war in space and the use of robots is P.W. Singer’s presentation (Military Robots and the Future of War) on the current state of robotics in military use or prototype stages during the TED convention (filmed February 2009).
This book has challenged much of what I thought I understood. As I read it, I often thought, “I don’t know what I don’t know.” Of course, anyone who has read Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” will understand the concept of ‘utopia’ (industrialized countries) based up on the abject suffering of others (third and even second-world countries). As the United States exerts its will to remain the global superpower, other countries will be forced to keep to themselves, to keep quite (though many will not), else risk the subtle wrath of an economic, political and militaristic giant (and so be chastised). After reading The Next 100 Years,I am put in my place, if you will. It is humbling and humiliating to realize what our position has cost us morally and what it will continue to cost but I am not so hypocritical as to denounce our actions. Nor do I see droves of the religious walking away from Omelas.
Perhaps our comfort and complacency will lead to our eventual collapse, but, according to Friedman, it won’t happen in my life time, nor that of my children’s. And there is no guarantee that our successor will be any more judicious. In fact, Friedman’s mise en scene slants toward Machiavellianism.
Now, what does this mean for Libraries? Equality within an unequal and chaotic system? Truth within a corrupt system? Compassion within a cruel system? Because Freidman’s forecasting is based on one more important truth: history repeats itself. We are, essentially, stuck in a system, following a pattern of behaviour driven by a fundamental truth: we cling to that which we were born into – our country. Countries that have fought will fight again. Countries that have crumbled from within will do so again, and this time, their vulnerability in a global society will spell almost certain doom for them.
