15 Oct 2009, Posted by Lance in General, No Comments.

The Latest and Greatest From The “Experts”

I just threw this book into my que at audible.com but, I found this review interesting. If you are a reader of Legacy Dad, none of these findings should surprise you.

Nutureshock Review

By Kay Hymowitz

For more than a century American parents—ever more distanced from
grandmothers and suspicious of tradition—have looked to social
science to explain their children to them. Thus they have gobbled up
books and articles by experts who periodically deliver the latest
truths about child-rearing. Back in 1945, when Dr. Spock published his
"Baby and Child Care," readers' devotion to expert opinion was so
intense that he began his book with the reassuring words: "Trust
yourself." Not that he believed it. The book was jammed with advice.

Now, in "NurtureShock," Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman survey the
newest new findings about child development. Little in the book is all
that shocking, but given our enthusiasm for turning tentative child
research into settled policy, the studies that the authors discuss
are of more than passing interest.

A striking example is the latest research on self-esteem. As Mr.
Bronson and Ms. Merryman remind us, the psychologist Nathaniel Brandon
published a path-breaking paper in 1969 called "The Psychology of
Self-Esteem" in which he argued that feelings of self-worth were a key
to success in life. The theory became a big hit in the nation's
schools; in the mid-1980s, the California Legislature even established
a self-esteem task force. By now, there are 15,000 scholarly articles
on the subject.

And what do they show? That high self-esteem doesn't improve grades,
reduce anti-social behavior, deter alcohol drinking or do much of
anything good for kids. In fact, telling kids how smart they are can be
counterproductive. Many children who are convinced that they are
little geniuses tend not to put much effort into their work. Others are
troubled by the latent anxiety of adults who feel it necessary to
praise them constantly.

The
benefits of teaching tolerance and promoting diversity look equally
unimpressive in the current research. According to "NurtureShock," a
lot of well-meaning adult nostrums—"we're all friends," "we're all
equal"—pass right over the heads of young children. Attempts to
increase racial sensitivity in older students can even lead to
unintended consequences. One researcher found that "more diversity
translates into more divisions between students." Another warns that
too much discussion of past discrimination can make minority children
over-reactive to perceived future slights. As for trying to increase
emotional intelligence, the education fad of the 1990s, it doesn't seem
to promote "pro-social values" either. It turns out that bullies use
their considerable EQ, as it is called, to control their peers.

Education policy makers will find more cause for embarrassment in
"NurtureShock." Drop-out programs don't work. Neither do anti-drug
programs. The most popular of them, D.A.R.E (Drug Abuse Resistance
Education), developed in 1983 by the Los Angeles Police Department,
has become a more familiar sight in American schools than algebra
class. By 2000, 80% of American school districts were using D.A.R.E.
materials in some form. Now, after extensive study, comes the news: The
program has no long-term, and only mild short-term, effects. Oh, and
those tests that school districts use to determine giftedness in young
children? They're just about useless. According to Mr. Bronson and Ms.
Merryman, early IQ tests predict later achievement less than half the
time. Between ages 3 and 10, about two-thirds of children will
experience a rise or drop of 15 points or more.

You might assume from these examples that the authors want to make
a point about our national gullibility in the face of faddish science.
Unfortunately, they deconstruct yesterday's wisdom at the same time
that they embrace today's—even when research is on the order of
"do-we-really-need-a-$50,000-study-to-tell-us-this?" or of dubious
practical value. Kids lie, they inform us. In fact, 4-year-olds lie
once every hour. Still, Mr. Bronson and Ms. Merryman are impressed by
research showing that "lying is an advanced skill," supposedly
demonstrating both social and cognitive sophistication.

As for teenagers, well, they lie too. Parents shouldn't worry about
them, though; they fib not because they want to get away with stuff
they shouldn't be doing but because they don't want to upset mom and
dad. Depending on your point of view, you might not be surprised to
learn that permissive parents don't get more truth-telling from their
teens than stricter parents. In any event, teens like conflict
because, it is now claimed, they see it as enhancing their
relationships with their parents.

Given how often last year's science has become today's boondoggle,
Mr. Bronson and Ms. Merryman's analysis would have benefited from a
dose of skepticism. Yes, social science has become more rigorously
empirical in recent decades. A lot of the findings described in
"NurtureShock" might even be true. But that doesn't mean that we have
the remotest idea how to translate such findings into constructive
parental behavior or effective public programs.

In a famous 1994 study described by the authors, researchers
discovered that babies of professional parents were exposed to almost
three times the number of words as the babies of welfare parents.
Parents took to buying $699 "verbal pedometers," a gadget that counts
the number of words their baby is hearing per hour. Now experts are
modifying the earlier findings. Turns out that it's not so much the
number of words kids hear that matters but the responsiveness of adults
to a child's words and explorations. Shocked? I doubt it.

Ms. Hymowitz, a contributing editor of the
Manhattan Institute's City Journal, is the author of "Marriage and
Caste in America" (Ivan R. Dee, 2006).

Source:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574371422231600220.html#articleTabs%3Darticle