Another provocative, idea-challenging, and idea-changing book I’ve just pored over is NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children. Written by two award-winning journalists, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, this exciting book is a collection of individual explorations of research and programs in child development and learning that turn conventional thinking, including some of my own, upside down and inside out.

I purchased the book after seeing that one chapter (“Can Self-Control Be Taught?”) was devoted to Tools of the Mind, the preschool and kindergarten curriculum our school district is now implementing. This chapter reinforced for me that our teachers had made a pioneering and significant decision about early education in our district by adopting this program.

But Bronson and Merryman do not just present dry research statistics. They unpack the program’s goals of teaching children to be more self-regulated through an emphasis on imaginative play, with stories of real children and teachers from their visits to program sites, interviews with parents, and anecdotes about how they’ve tried to apply the ideas with their own children at home.

Parents and teachers alike will find each chapter of this book full of concepts and new research that either reinforce your convictions about children and learning or explode long-held assumptions—or both!

In addition to the chapter about Tools of the Mind, I was especially interested in:

“The Lost Hour”—More strong evidence about the detriments of sleep deprivation for children. More research that confirms more of what I see in children’s school performance today, especially at the secondary level.

“The Inverse Power of Praise”—Paula Denton, the author of The Power of Our Words: Teacher language That Helps Children Learn will love this chapter, as will all teachers and parents seeking to foster their children’s learning with their words.

“Why Kids Lie”—This chapter will surprise you (it did me), with compelling, first-hand research accounts.

“The Sibling Effect”— Think you know why siblings treat each other the way they do? Think again.

These are just half of the chapters in the book.

I won’t be surprised to see this book move to the top of best-seller lists. But beyond its compelling, easy-to-read, journalistic style, this book is also appended with eighty pages of notes and references. The authors have done their homework and they have done some significant homework for their readers for sure!