Comments on: Book Review: NurtureShock by Bronson and Merryman

By: Gullible New Parent: Quote a Day #3 - NutureShock

Gullible New Parent: Quote a Day #3 - NutureShock — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 05:50:28 +0000

[...] googling to see whether others agreed. Overall, reviews are pretty positive. However, one negative review (Christine Cavalier at PurpleCar) caught my eye. She wrote: Basically, I found the [...]

By: PurpleCar

PurpleCar — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 03:02:00 +0000

That’s not jealous, it’s pissed. I care about this subject.
You’re right that I should have written it more professionally. I wrote this a
while ago when I was just “blogging” and not “writing.” I won’t apologize for
this. My hobbies and career focus have changed since then; you’ll notice my tone
has changed lately. My opinion of this book has not changed, however. It’s
dreck. The authors were lazy editorializers. Most of the comments on Goodreads,
and in email, etc, say people agree with my assessment.

Thanks for commenting though.

Peace!
-PurpleCar
http://www.purplecar.net/

By: Omar

Omar — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 01:38:00 +0000

Sorry, I’m late, Christine. But your tone of the review just says you’re so jealous. Your tone doesn’t show you’re a professional reviewer. Clearly. And not only you can tell people’s tone by just “reading their writing.” Excellent! How does my tone sound?

By: Mark Candle

Mark Candle — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:44:24 +0000

I am so vastly pleased I've read this book by Ms. Hopkins. I wish I had this to read when I was the same age as India Jane and still at narconon northern California. We also had all this pressure on us to decide on what subjects to study, as these would directly influence your career choice. It was insane and scary and I still vividly recall the terror of that time.

By: PurpleCar

PurpleCar — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:50:43 +0000

ROCK ON, Sister. Totally valid points.

I think the authors were trying to hook on to Malcolm Gladwell's coattails, trying to grab some of his market. But Gladwell makes no mistake in pretending to be an expert in anything. He is a journalist and he makes that clear. This book is, as you put it so well, a dangerous read. Gladwell tells interesting stories that are food for thought. NurtureShock tries to report results of supported studies, but the data just aren't there to back up their claims. And the anecdotal stories are deceiving and, as you say, over-generalizations. It was a very annoying read for me.

Thanks for contributing some sense into the mix. Thankfully I haven't seen the book get much press, perhaps we can safely assume that others have had the ability to see through its crap too.

-PC

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By: PurpleCar

PurpleCar — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:50:43 +0000

By: MariaLupron

MariaLupron — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 07:20:21 +0000

Nurture Shock should be read with great caution. Parents should not rely solely on the authors points in the book. I hold a Masters in Educational Psychology and found this book to have many flaws in providing sound empirical research findings. It seemed like the authors have gathered a whole bunch of poor publised studies to support their opinions. When I read a book like this I like to look for reliable sources that come from highly known Journals. Of the journal articles cited in the book, I found them to be weak in supporting their claims.
In Chapter 2, the authors have used an unpublished/graduate students' dissertation regarding children's racial atitudes to support their opinions, (2) they have formulated a biased theory called “The Diverse Environmental Theory”. The author has used his own son's experience (over generalizing) to formulate a theory of their own but seems more like a hypothesis that is in need for much more review and empirical research to support their views. Although I enjoyed reading the book, I find this book to be a dangerous read, especially for a parent who has no background knowledge on child development, to be able to make clear distinctions on sound valid research in the field. The tone of the book makes it seem like the authors are experts in the field of child development but are not. It's funny how no where in the book have they talked about their credentials. Nice try!!

By: PurpleCar

PurpleCar — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:14:12 +0000

Thanks for your comment, Dr. Chadwick!

Remind me to which comment you are referring about socioeconomics and race? There is no neurological "cause" for that, surely. To say so would be racism. Socioeconomics and academic performance are most certainly correlated, but as you and I know, correlation does not equal causation.

I'm in a bit of a morning rush right now, but I really appreciate what you wrote here and will comment further later. Thanks!

Peace!
-PurpleCar

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By: DrCliftonchadwick

DrCliftonchadwick — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:34:05 +0000

In a web page,http://www.publicschoolinsights.org/visionaries/AshleyMerryman, Merryman says:

But what is the advantage of this early identification? All the science says if you are doing any real assessment before third grade, you are only finding socioeconomic advantage and not actual intelligence or giftedness at all.

It’s just that once you keep getting into more rarefied environments, then those kids benefit. If gifted program kids get to go to museums, it’s not surprising then they know more about art. So in some ways that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In terms of what you were saying about socioeconomics and race…Neurologically, there just really isn’t any support for that.

We do see country patterns, where there are sort of national comparative IQs. And westernized more affluent countries that have more education have a national IQ that is higher than another country that would be more developing. But your IQ rises about, I think, eight points for every eight months you are in school. So if you educated that population we would expect that their IQs would go up.

So I don’t really see any real neuroscience supporting any racial or socioeconomic differences. It’s just that as the kid develops, what kind of enrichment they are getting, what kind of environment are they in? And does that have an effect? Absolutely.

This comment is rather irresponsible. As Murray explains ((Real Education) there are socio-econmic differences in IQ, IQ is stable, it is easily identified at six to eight years of age, is is quite predictive of outcome. The comment about neuroscience has far less to do with IQ than with the current state of neuroscience. The only thing that makes any sense (from the web page, I have not read the book, which has not arrived in the Middle East) is the comment that “So it turns out that achievement builds self-esteem, but building self-esteem does not increase achievement—it’s a one-way street, not a two-way.” But that is old hat,. quite clearly demonstrated by Bandura about 30 years ago.

By: PurpleCar

PurpleCar — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:12:44 +0000

Thanks for commenting, Wendy.

I was courteous to Mr. Bronson. Disagreement doesn’t automatically mean rudeness.

Rude is found in undertones. I had none. I was straightforward with my criticism. I wouldn’t have printed the more direct criticism if Mr. Bronson didn’t call for it specifically with his comment. For an example in rude undertone, your last line has a condescending one (“It’s a shame” part). You can disagree with my opinion of the book, but I would have given your criticism more weight in total if you didn’t descend into that pot shot.

I’m happy that you didn’t assume that the authors were experts. They should have made that more clear in the beginning of the book, as is the tradition with books like this. They seemed to conveniently left that disclaimer out. Don’t tell me they simply overlooked it; they are seasoned writers with expert publishers and they know better.

I enjoyed the book too, but that’s not my point. My point was that the research the authors cite is new, the authors aren’t experts, and they don’t give proper warnings about those pitfalls.

These are fair and legitimate criticisms of the book.

I, too, was surprised Mr. Bronson commented. Why bother with a blog post that is on page 8 of the Google search? And to comment so quickly after my post! Baffling.

Thanks for taking the time to comment. Good luck with your teen daughters! I hear it can be quite a challenge. Maybe implementing the author’s theory that teens see arguing as the opposite of lying will help you appreciate the notorious tiffs of teen girls. A very good and well-respected book in the field, which you may have read already, is How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber. I’ve read this book many times and it has solid advice. She also has a teen version (which I haven’t yet read): How to Talk So Teens Will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk. Instead of one or two studies with food for thought, like NurtureShock, Ms. Faber’s book gives exercises and instruction on technique, as well as theory. If you liked the “let’s-go-against-traditional-thinking” ideas of NurtureShock, you’ll probably find those books enlightening too.

-PC