NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children

kids are developmentally prone to in-group favoritism; they’re going to form these preferences on their own.

Sincerity of praise is also crucial.

Since the 1969 publication of The Psychology of Self-Esteem, in which Nathaniel Branden opined that self-esteem was the single most important facet of a person, the belief that one must do whatever he can to achieve positive self-esteem has become a movement with broad societal effects.

“Nurture shock,” as the term is generally used, refers to the panic—common

It’s possible that by third grade, when parents usually recognize it’s safe to start talking a little about race, the developmental

“A person who grows up getting too frequent rewards will not have persistence, because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear.”

The more you learned during the day, the more you need to sleep that night.

reporting the opposite consequence. Dweck and others have found that frequently-praised children get more competitive and more interested in tearing others down. Image-maintenance becomes their primary concern.

it takes years before their cognitive abilities allow them to successfully use more than one attribute to categorize anything. In the meantime, the attribute they rely on is that which is the most clearly visible.