Greater Good

A review of NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

Did you know that nearly all children lie—six year olds at a rate of about once an hour? That's not the only bad news Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman give us in NurtureShock. It also turns out that most kids are probably not getting enough sleep, and this sleep deprivation hinders their learning and brain development permanently. Oh, and the way we praise our kids is likely making them insecure and unmotivated.

Did I just make you want to buy this book? Bronson and Merryman have cleverly (some might say cynically) framed their book to speak to parents' worse fears. But even though NurtureShock's not-so-feel-good framing runs counter to my propensity to see the glass Half Full , it does offer a fascinating tour through some recent and provocative research on children.

Although the authors can make parents' instincts about children seem incredibly off the mark, NurtureShock readers might want to keep in mind that there is just as much research out there—or more—that can be deemed the science of the blazingly obvious. Contrary to the book's premise, research is finally vetting many of those parenting practices that have been preached for centuries by grandmothers and philosophers alike—like the fact that family dinners, time spent in meditative reflection, and old-fashioned unstructured playtime are all good for kids.

The real contribution of NurtureShock is not that it reveals how incredibly little we parents know, but that it shows how our materialistic, achievement-oriented culture can mislead us about how best to provide for our children's health and happiness. We buy into the importance of having our children labeled "gifted" early in life; we get carried away trying to pack too many activities into our kids' lives, when what they really need is more sleep and free play; we spend billions of dollars on gimmicky videos hoping to give our kids an academic edge.

My recommendation is that we read NurtureShock and not feel anxious that we are doing everything wrong, but rather simply appreciate the main service it provides: distilling scores of academic studies through engaging storytelling, saving us from having to wade through barely readable academic journals.

What could make the book even more helpful would be recommendations for actions parents can take based on the research Bronson and Merryman uncover. It's one thing to know that our children are liars, for example; it's another to understand what we should do with that knowledge.

For example, children lie mostly because they are trying to keep us happy (and to avoid being punished). So we need to make sure they understand clearly that we are happiest with them when they tell the truth. Researchers reduced lying in Canadian boys by 75 percent and girls by 50 percent by reading them a book (no longer in print, I checked) in which George Washington's father declares that he is glad his son cut down the cherry tree—because hearing young George tell the truth is better than "having a thousand cherry trees." There's nothing that complicated or counter-intuitive about that lesson for parents.

This business of raising children can, of course, be incredibly difficult. But, once you get past its alarmist framing, NurtureShock shows us that simple shifts in our understanding can make us significantly better parents.

© 2010 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

First, a correction: a careful reader of my newsletter last week noticed that the link in the last email was to a very old version of the Happiness Habit Tracker. Here's the link to the new one. The old version encourages rewards; after further review of the research related to rewards and children, I revised my recommendations: rewards may work in the short-run, but they back-fire in the long run. (Feel free to reward yourself however much you want, though: rewards work differently in the adult brain.)

This correction is a good opportunity to talk a little more about making those New Year's resolutions stick.

My therapist friend Ariel, one of the smartest women I know, doesn't like New Year's Resolutions. If you are going to change a habit, she says, go ahead and do it now. Don't wait for the New Year or give up if you haven't really started by the second week in January. I see her point, but personally I love New Year's resolutions. I love the idea of a clean break, of the opportunity to start anew. Usually I go crazy with long lists of zillions of things I'd like to change about myself, my family, my kids: and then, to Ariel's point, I end up changing very little.

If you'd like to start a Happiness Habit in your family this year (for example, I recommend getting an enjoyable and doable dinnertime routine into place if you don't already have one) here is my best advice: START SMALL, and start now. Print out this habit tracker, and start doing one absurdly small thing today.

For example, take my New Year's resolution "to exercise more." This is not hard given that I don't really exercise at all right now (to Kelly Corrigan's point, not exercising is a real time saver—cuts back on the time I'd spend exercising AND the time I spend showering). But leave it to me to MAKE it hard. My thought process usually goes something like this:

"Okay, so I'm going to exercise more. Research shows that you really need to do 30 minutes of aerobic exercise 5-6 times a week to reap the benefits, so I'll schedule a walk every day but Sunday. Actually, maybe I'll run a half marathon with my neighbor. So I'll schedule 2 or 3 longer runs a week. Maybe I should find a running coach. I'll definitely need to start doing some strength training, too, at least a couple of days a week. And stretching. I should get back to yoga. I really want to be doing that at LEAST once a week."

I do this with my kids and their habits as well: I start with the idea of, say, getting into the habit of doing more art with them in some routine way, and suddenly I've created a home art curriculum of fine arts training so unrealistic we never even get started.

What I need to do: plan to "exercise more" in absurdly small turtle steps. Week 1: Three days this week, just walk the dog, even if I only end up having time to go around the block. This will get me into the habit of reintegrating exercise into my life a little bit at a time.

Here is the good news: starting small can have very big effects. When you start doing one small thing that takes some willpower, it will have an effect on other things you'd like to change. Self discipline is like a muscle: make it stronger, and you'll have more willpower for other things.

The Snowball Effect
The weirdest thing about the research on willpower is this phenomena that when we start consciously working on one thing that takes self-discipline, we also tend to start improving our lives in other areas as well. When researchers ask college students to attend to one area of their lives—trying to improve their posture throughout the day, for example, or to attend to their finances for a few weeks—they end up doing other things that might end up on a New Year's Resolution list, too, like watching less TV, working out more, and improving their eating habits.

We can't consciously pursue too many goals at once, or goals that are too ambitious at the outset, because our willpower muscle isn't strong enough yet. But strengthening our willpower eventually works wonders on the things that we aren't consciously focusing on, too.

One last thing: if you feel you and your kids have willpower fatigue—you've used up your stores for the day—find a way to laugh. Research shows that it improves your mood and in so doing restores your willpower reserves.

© 2010 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

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Selected References:

Baumeister, Roy F., and Matthew Gailliot, C. Nathan DeWall, and Megan Oaten, 2006, "Self-Regulation and Personality: How Interventions Increase Regulatory Success, and How Depletion Moderates the Effects of Traits on Behavior," Journal of Personality, Vol 74, Issue 6, pp 1773-1802.

The above journal article, available to all, reviews current research on self regulation. Senia Maymin wrote a posting summarizing this research that might be more fun to read than the actual journal article. And Penelope Trunk blogs about this research with some regularity in her entertaining way; in fact, her most recent posting about it is more detailed and probably more helpful than this posting. (Her blog isn't often all that science-based, and it isn't related to parenting, but I've found that when I'm feeling scattered and stretched thin, Trunk makes me feel positively high functioning.)

What do you want for your family in 2010? How about more peaceful dinnertimes? Calmer mornings getting ready for school? An end to nagging kids to do those boring but necessary tasks?

YOU CAN DO IT!

Here's how.

1. Get Started

First, learn a little something about the science of habit formation. Key take-away: change happens in stages, and if you skip a stage, your odds for success will be dramatically lower.

2. Use the Happiness Habit Tracker

Next, print out some new Happiness Habit Trackers. This tool will help you and your kids form new habits. Remember to make each step RIDICULOUSLY easy.

3. Get kids to do boring (but necessary) tasks

Replace rewards with this specific kind of encouragement.

If that isn't enough for you, take the test: Handle Bad Behavior in Public Places. This post is based on a real-life parenting moment.

Please write in with the best habits you've helped your kids form, and how you did it. Last week's posting about spirituality is getting some really good comments (I'm taking some heat!) so I'm looking forward to a juicy comment round-up next week.

Happy New Year, all.

© 2010 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

Become a fan of Raising Happiness on Facebook.

Subscribe to the Happiness Matters Podcast on iTunes.

Sign up for the Raising Happiness CLASS!