Our current methods for nurturing our kids are in fact wrong 
(22/12/2009)
Whilst researching an article into self-confidence in adults, journalists and parents Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman were so shocked to discover scientific research which argued that our habit of telling kids they were smart was in fact undermining their confidence, that they decided to question other established wisdoms of modern parenting.
After three years of investigation they found that a hodgepodge of wishful thinking, moralistic biases, contagious fads and old (disproven) psychology had created a bedrock of parenting strategies that could no longer be relied upon. Instead, they argue, when it comes to our children we’ve mistaken good intentions for good ideas – and our current methods for nurturing our kids are in fact wrong.
With chapters devoted to subjects including confidence, intelligence, sibling conflict and teen rebellion, Nurtureshock is a radical investigation that forces us to rethink many sacred cows – the idea that children are naturally blind to racial constructs, the notion that television is making children fat, the presumption that it’s necessarily a good sign if a child can say “no” to peer pressure and the idea that being an only child deprives kids of good social skills.
Ground-breaking and thought-provoking, Nutureshock is the Freakonomics of childhood and adolescence, exploring logic-defying insights that have far-reaching relevance for us all. Definitively not a parenting guide, this is an anti-advice book which provides an entirely fresh perspective to how we bring up our young.
Nurtureshock - Why everything we think about raising our children is wrong, by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman is published by Ebury Press on 4th February 2010, £12.99 trade paperback original
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