The bookstore had 50% off and NurtureShock was getting rave reviews.
The Introduction explains the title:
“Nurture shock” as the term is generally used, refers to the panic–common among new parents–that the mythical fountain of knowledge is not magically kicking in at all.
This book will deliver a similar shock–it will use the fascinating new science of children to reveal just how many of our bedrock assumptions about kids can no longer be counted on.
The central premise of this book is that many of modern society’s strategies for nurturing children are in fact backfiring — because key twists in the science have been overlooked.
The resulting errant assumptions about child development have distorted parenting habits, school programs, and social policies. They affect how we think about kids, and thus how we interpret child behavior and communicate with the young. The intent of this book is not to be alarmist, but to teach us to think differently–more deeply and clearly–about children. Small corrections in our thinking today could alter the character of society long-term, one future citizen at a time. (pp. 6-7)
This book shocked me; but not with the idea that some social science findings are naive, and others are enlightening. I was shocked that the authors don’t see that, just as “key twists” were overlooked in interpretations of yesterday’s studies, “key twists” are waiting around the corner of today’s findings. They came to the wrong conclusion from their description of wrong conclusions.
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