Off the bookshelf: "NurtureShock" by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

Don't ever tell your kids that they're smart.  Certain types of praise can be damaging.  Modern young people sleep almost an hour less than their peers did thirty years ago, and their IQ's are suffering for it.  96% of high school students lie to their parents, regularly.  Trying to make your child "colorblind" can actually make them less racially tolerant.  Watching Sesame Street can make a child more aggressive than if they watched Power Rangers.

Above are some of the conclusions in "NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children", an engaging work of non-fiction that seeks to summarize some of the counter-intuitive research on child-rearing that has emerged from the fields of psychology, sociology, and anthropology.  I was particularly struck by the chapter on praise and labelling students with the tag of "smart".  In the book, they show compelling examples of how this label can create a psychologically crippling response when the child is faced with challenges that seem initially to be beyond their capacities.  The authors' conclusion is that parents should focus their praise much more on effort and determination, and that this praise should be specific to processes rather than general.  Thus, instead of saying "You played a great game," a child is more likely to have positive efforts reinforced by a comment like: "I like the way you shared the ball, and played aggressively on defense."

Overall, it was a fascinating and interesting read, and I recommend it.