Sweet Vernal Zephyr

NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children
by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman
Audiobook Runtime 8 hours and 2 minutes

In a world of modern, involved, caring parents, why are so many kids aggressive and cruel? Where is intelligence hidden in the brain, and why does that matter? Why do cross-racial friendships decrease in schools that are more integrated? If 98% of kids think lying is morally wrong, then why do 98% of kids lie? What's the single most important thing that helps infants learn language?

NurtureShock is a groundbreaking collaboration between award-winning science journalists Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. They argue that when it comes to children, we've mistaken good intentions for good ideas. With impeccable storytelling and razor-sharp analysis, they demonstrate that many of modern society's strategies for nurturing children are in fact backfiring - because key twists in the science have been overlooked.

Nothing like a parenting manual, the authors' work is an insightful exploration of themes and issues that transcend children's (and adults') lives.

• Unique and immediately drew my attention

• Po's tone is very sing song in quality and takes some getting used to.

• You don't have to have children to appreciate the science represented in this book.


• Interesting facts to reflect on your own childhood, or your teaching practices, or just your own personal physical and mental health.


• Take with a grain of salt, studies are always changing and statistics can easily be cast in the preferred light of the narrator, easily biased by small study pools or incomplete investigations, not thorough enough, don't investigate all the possibilities. If you want a certain outcome, you can set up a study that will give you the results you are looking for, therefore I am hesitant to completely trust the studies that are all done by the same researcher and support a main theory unless that theory was formulated AFTER the research, which never happens because funding doesn't work like that.


• The sections on sleep, lies, & "Tools" classrooms held my interest.


• I lost interest in the middle section, which I think was about testing.


• It took me a while to get through this audio. Partially because there is a lot of information to absorb. And partially because there were parts that simply did not speak to me because I am not a teacher or a parent.


• The conclusion discussed graduate experiments, the type of which I have first hand experience with. I was servery depressed in college and one of the things that helped me get through was making a note card every day of at least one thing that made me happy. A study of "gratitude" is talked about in the conclusion.


• Overall, there are two main points that need to be understood about children:

  1. Children are not the same as adults. They do not act the same or react the same.
  2. Good does not verse bad. They are separate and one does not effect the level of the other.

I received this book through a weekend wondering contest at My Reading Room. Thanks again Crystal!

Listen to a sample HERE.

Did you review this book too?
Comment with your link! (usually at the top of this post)

Sweet daydreams...