That was NOT a review of Nurtureshock.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with a lot of what the woman said. (See my previous post.)

But what she said has nothing to do with the book. I didn't know that at first - now I only have a couple more chapters to go in the book and I can say with certainty Nurtureshock has nothing to do with playdates or video games or any of that.

The book completely debunks the flawed-from-the-get-go study about self-esteem from twenty years ago or so which put us on the path to where we are now - to where a school in MA has kids jump rope (wait for it) without jump ropes to avoid someone falling and hurting their precious self-esteem.

Study after study has now shown that telling a kid he is "smart" versus telling him he "must have worked really hard" or "really concentrated" is detrimental to the child and causes lower test scores and ultimately lower self-esteem. 

The books cites many studies on lying and we learn that telling kids about Geo. Washington and the cherry tree results in less lying but telling them about The Boy Who Cried Wolf causes INCREASED lying.

A chapter is devoted to fights among siblings.

A chapter is devoted to race. We find out why kids in more diverse schools tend to segregate MORE and why it's important to approach the race issue head-on.

A chapter is devoted to the ridiculous ways schools test for "gifted" and why it's a completely flawed system.

This is not a parenting manual - it's a book about child psychology more than anything.

And it's fantastic!