NurtureShock: A New Perspective on Raising Children

Amazon Customer: We (me and my husband) learnt so much from this book. The researches are fantastic, and we became better parents after gaining insight on these new researches. It was so interesting I couldn't put it down. I only wished I would have read it earlier.

Canada on Aug 27, 2020

Elanor Lane: Honestly, this book is super informative. Topics include:. How to praise (hint, do not tell your kids how smart they are!); Sleep and the impacts on IQ, emotional well being, ADHD; Race and how to teach it in a positive way; why kids lie; IQ in kindergarten and how this is not accurate predictor of future IQ; silibing and why they fight; teen rebellion, what are they lying about and how can you tell... There are three more chapters I haven't read yet but honestly I would highly recommend!!

Canada on Jun 19, 2019

ADAM T: Lots of great info. Had no idea how every 15 minutes of sleep mattered. Didn't really know what to make of/do with the "talking about race w/ children" chapter. "This study showed this and this study showed the opposite.." But the rest of the book was good and had very useful information.

Canada on Sep 23, 2016

Paul Smolen: I am a pediatrician and a blogger. The following is a book review I co-wrote for my blog, [...], in April 2014.

While not exactly a traditional parenting book, Nuture Shock is full of interesting and useful information that parents can use. It may even change some of your basic assumptions about children! Unlike previous books reviewed on my blog that featured discussions of subjects like discipline, sleep schedules, or nutrition for babies and toddlers, NutureShock is an intellectual, research based book about what makes children tick. This book is not for the parent looking for a solution to address a specific parenting issue but rather for those readers wishing to gain insight into how children learn, develop, and function. Written by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, both journalists and writers by trade, this book is an overview of the latest developments in child psychology and development.

Nuture Shock is actually a compilation of essays written on various topics from sleep, racial attitudes, lying in childhood, and sibling relationships. The book is well written and accessible to most readers although at times may seem dense with examples and citations from...

United States on Apr 11, 2014

Li-ling: Being a Malaysian Chinese mother living in the UK, my perceptions of parenting and been significantly coloured by the environment and the developments the fields of both psychology and parenting. It had also for a long time made me question my parenting style, more a tamed tiger mummy than the relaxed counterpart. This is the book that gave me the confidence that I really was doing the right thing and that being strict, mean and stern when necessary was not a bad thing.

At the end of the day, the most important message and constant reminder that we can give our children is that we love them unconditionally, and while their actions and words may need discipline and correction, at the heart of it all we do have their best interests at heart, because of our unconditional love.

United Kingdom on Mar 01, 2013

MagicalMindz: A portion of this review appears in the comments section under a one star review by Achilles. I just finished reading this book and was curious about what others thought. Evidently, the majority of readers enjoyed it as much as I did and for a variety of excellent reasons. The few one star reviews were surprisingly strident, imperious, patronizing and overbearing. They pronounced the book as "biased" ~ which merely means that it had a point of view, as most non fiction books do, but that was not a reason for one star; another said it was a "waste" because they felt the authors made assumptions about who would read it ~ in my opinion, such assumptions are only logical when you expect to make money on the book ~ in marketing we like to know our intended audience ~ but again, surely not a reason for one star; yet a third felt the conclusions were "facile" but for all the wrong reasons; while a fourth angrily focused on merely 3 pages. Achilles, your review requires a category of its own. It seems a few brave souls have addressed you with their comments. What struck me was that some of the arrogance, rage and fury over this book seems disproportionate to its content ~ which is clearly...

United States on Apr 24, 2010

AK: I was really looking forward to this one, having read all of Po Bronson's previous stuff (was mostly highly impressed), and being highly interested in the topic. My expectations might have been coloured by that in the sense that I was expecting a more comprehensive treatise on all interesting developments in child psychology over the last 20 years.

Overall a 4/5, for the simple fact that the result that came out from the research that went in, was a bit too sparse in my opinion. While I have no trouble agreeing to all the findings and very much like the process of showing how iterative efforts are necessary at uncovering working principles, as opposed to intuitively appealing concepts, which tend not to be borne out of practice, I have expected a more thorough analysis of the issues.

Another negative for me was a somewhat lacking introduction, where the authors would explain in more detail, why the specific aspects discussed were chosen, whether those are all the areas, where a change of perspective took place, and if not, why the authors considered those most important.

On the plus side, the conclusions drawn do not ever seem flimsy and complete references...

United Kingdom on Sep 21, 2009