A while back I mentioned I was reading this book. Well I finished NurtureShock.

There was a lot of interesting research in the book, but I must say that I’m a tad disappointed by the final conclusion. Kids are different from adults, so we should treat them differently. Ya think? I could elaborate: Children are still growing and developing, so we shouldn’t treat them like adults, who have reached maturity.

There was one chapter, on corporal punishment, that had some faulty assumptions. The gist of this chapter is that while it is assumed that corporal punishment harms children, making them more violent, it depends on who is doing the spanking. In white middle class families, spanking is seen as abhorrent, so if a parent goes that far, then the child will also see it as a very negative thing. I would suggest that in this kind of situation, the parent hits the child out of anger, and that does set up a host of negative consequences.

The authors note two exceptions to the spanking rule: blacks and evangelicals. Their idea is that blacks treat spanking as a normal part of life, so the children don’t overreact to a spanking. The same thing with evangelicals, whom the authors identify as being under the influence of Dr. Dobson. Whether that’s the case or not, that’s not why evangelicals spank their children. They spank their children because they believe in the Bible, which says that he who spares the rod hates his child, among other things.

I bring this issue up because I found it really jarring. Everything else in the book was something I hadn’t heard before, and I had no reason to doubt its validity. But to come across something that’s obviously wrong, subtly off, called everything else into question. Chapters on lying and racism might further expose faulty logic.

This book would definitely be cause to eat the meat and spit out the bone. The authors present the research in a very compelling way; I’d just be wary of their conclusions.