Award winning journalists and science writers, and authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, took the time to answer some questions about their groundbreaking book NurtureShock: New Thinking about Children . Thanks to the authors for their interesting and insightful answers to some of the issues raised in their fascinating book.
There are many books written about parenting. How is NurtureShock: New Thinking about Children different from standard books on the topic?
Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman: Most parenting books are focused on dispensing parenting advice – and there's little information as to where the advice comes from, or how the expert concluded that was the best course of action. NurtureShock comes at this from the opposite approach: we tell you who are the scientists working on child development and what they are doing to further their research, letting lessons develop naturally understanding from their work. So I think it reads very differently – and its appeal isn't limited to parents.
The ideas presented in the book are taken from modern scientific study. Why aren't these scientific findings more widely spread and understood?
Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman: Every day, I get at least 20 or 30 press releases about some new scientific finding or "break-through." Many studies do get reported on, however, there's no content in the story beyond exactly what was found in that specific new report. To me, that's the intellectual equivalent of throwing spaghetti on the wall until it sticks. People just can't tell from the sound-bite of a single report if that study's worth paying attention to, so even the good research can't get any traction.
So I think all scientists struggle with how to get their word out. And the problem is even more acute in child development research, because the presumption has been that parents want just a quick instant-fix/parenting trick, and they don't have the time or interest to go beyond that.
Where the science really sings is when it's put in context – when we can take the time to spell out the methods being used to study an issue, and show how this work differs and replicates what's come before.
Many people believe there is a a nurturing or parenting instinct. How does your research differ from this widely held mythos?
Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman: There is an innate, biological instinct to protect a child. Hormones kick-in; parts of a mother's brain become activated when she hears her child cry. But I think a lot of people use the term for a much broader meaning that relates to over-all parenting ability – the myth being a parents automatically know what to do when a baby cries over a bottle or a teen cries over a broken heart.
And I think that story sets parents up for a fall, because they feel like a failure when that "instinct" fails to manifest itself.
As to how best to parent, that's not instinct. It's learned and up to each individual.
Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman (both authors in photo left)
One of the areas where your book moves away from standard beliefs is in the area of praise for children. Why are the standard ideas not the same as your findings as presented in the book?
Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman: Since the 1970s, there has been an increasing focus on building kids' self-esteem through praise – the idea being that if you build a child's self-confidence, they can achieve more.
But more recent research has shown that it's actually the reverse: if kids get praised for being wonderful, then they don't see the need to improve – because they've already become secure in their greatness.
At the same time, research done by Stanford's Carol Dweck shows that broad praise like, "You're so intelligent," teaches kids that success is based on an innate skill they have or they don't. At that point, once again, such praise dissuades kids from putting out effort. Instead, it just becomes about findings ways for kids to protect their self-image.
Your discussion of standard IQ tests, that are often taken as indisputable truth by many, and often form the basis for determining children's futures, has different findings. What are your discoveries?
Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman: The popular concept of giftedness is that IQ is very stable – a child who does well on an IQ test at four years old will do just as well at 40. Operating with this view, schools and others have kids as young as four take IQ tests, and the institutions use these results for the kids' permanent placement in gifted programs.
But there is nothing in the neuroscience to support that position. Kids often have dramatic swings in IQ scores until at least age eight, and, for the brightest kids, their progress is often more uneven. It turns out that the very brightest kids, their brain anatomy progresses at a slower rate. So the neuroscientists were so stunned to hear what schools were doing with early testing.
Then Po and I spoke to a number of the authors of IQ tests, to see their take on the matter. Every one of them objected to the way schools were using their tests in gifted assessments.
We need to give kids time to develop, recognizing that even just a month of schooling can increase a child's IQ.
What do your findings on teen rebellion tell you about that often controversial subject?
Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman: I think the story of teen rebellion is actually over-rated. Early psychologists themselves were promulgating that image of the teen years, but they were working with kids who were troubled – a clinical population. However, more recent research show most teens have very good relationships with their parents.
The issue isn't about rebellion, so much as it is about a child carving out his own identity – a sphere of influence to call his own. And there is tension over that begins well before the teen years.
Are gifted children really born that way, or are there other factors involved with children?
Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman: As I mentioned, education itself increases a kid's IQ.
Of course, while there probably are some biological predispositions to intelligence – you can inherit your mom's smarts along with your dad's eye color. But it's an enriching environment and involved caregiving, that really make the difference.
Did you expect to find so many controversial ideas about children that were so different from mainstream thought?
Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman: If a few years ago, you had told me that there was a lot of child development science out there that I didn't know about, I would have probably been surprised.
Then Po and I had heard about Carol Dweck's work on praise, and we couldn't believe that we hadn't already known about her work. So we figured that there must be more important research out there. Wanting to find that other work was the catalyst for the book.
What is next for Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman?
Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman: We just started a NurtureShock blog for Newsweek – continuing to develop some of the topics that are in the book, as well as developing new ones. And all Fall, we'll be traveling around the country, speaking about the book. That's where all our focus is at the moment.
My book review of NurtureShock: New Thinking about Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.
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