Saturday, February 4, 2012

NutureShock book review

Normally book reviews are on my technical blog, but I am reading a book about how kids develop. The first part of the book focuses on "the inverse power of praise" and specifically how it is important to provide praise for the process not rewarding the finish. Research shows that frequent reward does not develop persistence and leads to people being "praise junkies". I may be in that camp to some degree.
Not telling your child they are smart leaves it up to them, and robs them of the chance to learn that for themselves.

The author hits on other subjects
* Sleep - it is important for them/us
* Race - it is complicated to get the kids to not have bias, it is sort of counterintuitive in some cases
* lying - promoting truthfulness leads to more lying and they learn from watching their parents. just remind them of expectations
* tattling - it is the era of holding info back if you tell them you don't want to hear it.

I am halfway through the book and looking forward to reading the rest.

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