What I'm Reading Now - Nurture Shock

It all started when I was walking through the campus bookstore and the book cover caught my eye. A funny little egg, cracked, with a band aid over it. What WAS this book all about? Nurture Shock - New Thinking About Children... Turns out it was written by an author I had read before - Po Bronson (What Should I Do With My Life? -- turns out no one really knows... and in the end, the book was a bit depressing and unrewarding - but, well written). I was intrigued - and made a mental note to check into the book on Amazon.

And then, when I returned to the office, I had an email from Po Bronson. I must be on some sort of list that I don't remember ever signing up to receive. The email referred me to Newsweek. He and his co-author of Nurture Shock had written the cover story for Newsweek. It was about the creativity crisis in America and what to do about it. Not gonna lie - it felt a little serendipitous. So I jumped onto Newsweek, read the article, and was impressed. Then I went to Amazon and ordered the book.

The book arrived about a week ago. I've continued to be amazed ever since. The first chapter discusses the inverse power of positive praise. Basically here is the gist. Many parents continually praise their kids for being smart. "Oh, Johnny -- you are so smart! Good job". And you would think that this would be a good thing... turns out - research shows that this kind of praise has the potential to be destructive. Kids who are constantly praised for being smart are less likely to take educational risks - for fear that they might fail - and be seen as "not smart". Additionally, these same kids are less likely to stick with something they are bad at -- put in additional effort to master a difficult task - because they assume that being smart - or good at something should come easy to them.

The book states that instead, parents (and teachers) should praise kids for their efforts, and give specific examples in the praise. Kids who had their effort praised were more likely to stick with something difficult - and put in effort to work through the difficulty. They were also more likely to attempt challenging tasks that they knew would be very difficult and where there was a high chance they might not do very well.

Another chapter in the book addresses the issue of diversity. It turns out that kids in diverse classrooms or schools are LESS likely to have cross-racial friendships. The authors give specific examples of how parents need to talk to their kids about race. (i.e. we can't just assume that because the classroom is diverse that our kids "get" racial differences -- we need to be much more direct in our conversations.)

One chapter specifically addresses the issue of sleep in kids - Our school aged kids are getting 1 hour less sleep a night than they did 30 years ago. The cost? IQ points lost, ADHD, obesity, and problems with their emotional well being.

I don't want to give you the play by play of the entire book... Suffice it to say that over and over I've been fascinated by the information (and the science behind the information) in this book. I'd recommend it as a thought provoking (and relatively quick) read for anyone who is a parent or who works in K-12 education. I think you'll learn new information that may change some of your interactions with children. Or perhaps you're one of the lucky ones doing things completely right - and you will feel validated in your parenting/ teaching style!

And if you enjoy the book - here is some especially great news... The Metropolitan State College of Denver will be bringing the authors to campus on October 28th of this year. You could come hear the authors for yourself (the event is free) and even get your book signed! (yes, this is a shameless advertisement more information as the event day looms closer - humor me.)

Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman are weekly contributors to Newsweek - several of their articles are archived online as well - if you enjoy their work... you can be kept busy for a while. I've been trying to work my way through the list in all of my free time... all five minutes of it!Let me know if you pick up the book and read it. Or if you have read it already -- I'm also interested in your thoughts on the creativity (and other) articles in Newsweek.