Kids : How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Raise Young Children

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Cultural Comparisons, Different Conclusions
Review: I found this book very interesting reading as a means to discovering more about other cultures, how they raise their children, and why. For that reason alone, I would recommend this book. Ms. Small does go from there, however, to draw conclusions that in our culture we should look at these differences and re-think the way we raise our children from the fundamentals to the details, and I generally disagree with her perspective here. While I feel it is always good to 'think outside the box' about some things, we simply do not have the same lifestyle, needs, or concerns of primitive tribes, and so to compare child-rearing in such divergent cultures becomes too extreme for me. I agree with the reviewer who felt that Ms. Small seems, at times, impervious to the fact that we live in the world we live in. For various, generally legitimate, reasons, in our world it is not particularly wise for toddlers to be touching valuable products that could easily be broken. In other cultures, it might not matter since what is "valuable" in that society may be different. As someone on the cusp of receiving a grad degree in early childhood development and starting a child care business, as a mother of a pre-schooler, and most of all as a person living in western culture, I see strong reasons to acclimate our children to the world in which THEY will live - this often means "no touchy" as well as learning classroom rules and other lessons that will allow them to move seamlessly into OUR world. Early exposure to educational and cultural experiences may "over-schedule" them, but within reason establishes neural networks at a time when they are most ripe for learning and ingraining skills that will last a lifetime. This and other aspects of our Western view of child rearing, when in moderation, I believe are of benefit to our children unless they end up moving to Tanzania.... She talks about one culture in which children instead learn to find trails and fetch water in their early years, but our children do not need these skills, so I find the comparison interesting but irrelevant. She does make excellent observations about how, even in our own culture, the standards for child rearing have changed even over the last few decades. As a constantly evolving species, I'm sure the next few decades will see changes as well, hopefully weeding out the things that didn't work for our children and keeping what did.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Cultural Comparisons, Different Conclusions
Review: I found this book very interesting reading as a means to discovering more about other cultures, how they raise their children, and why. For that reason alone, I would recommend this book. Ms. Small does go from there, however, to draw conclusions that in our culture we should look at these differences and re-think the way we raise our children from the fundamentals to the details, and I generally disagree with her perspective here. While I feel it is always good to 'think outside the box' about some things, we simply do not have the same lifestyle, needs, or concerns of primitive tribes, and so to compare child-rearing in such divergent cultures becomes too extreme for me. I agree with the reviewer who felt that Ms. Small seems, at times, impervious to the fact that we live in the world we live in. For various, generally legitimate, reasons, in our world it is not particularly wise for toddlers to be touching valuable products that could easily be broken. In other cultures, it might not matter since what is "valuable" in that society may be different. As someone on the cusp of receiving a grad degree in early childhood development and starting a child care business, as a mother of a pre-schooler, and most of all as a person living in western culture, I see strong reasons to acclimate our children to the world in which THEY will live - this often means "no touchy" as well as learning classroom rules and other lessons that will allow them to move seamlessly into OUR world. Early exposure to educational and cultural experiences may "over-schedule" them, but within reason establishes neural networks at a time when they are most ripe for learning and ingraining skills that will last a lifetime. This and other aspects of our Western view of child rearing, when in moderation, I believe are of benefit to our children unless they end up moving to Tanzania.... She talks about one culture in which children instead learn to find trails and fetch water in their early years, but our children do not need these skills, so I find the comparison interesting but irrelevant. She does make excellent observations about how, even in our own culture, the standards for child rearing have changed even over the last few decades. As a constantly evolving species, I'm sure the next few decades will see changes as well, hopefully weeding out the things that didn't work for our children and keeping what did.

Rating:
Summary: Needs More Content
Review: I hope Professor Small reads this. There were two self-described scenes in this book that portrayed the author as rude and condescending to the other adult in the scene. The first was Professor Small and her child in a Pediatric room with a nurse and the second was Professor Small and her child in an eyeglasses store with an eyeglasses salesman. In the first scene Professor Small laughed and acted haughty at the nurses slightly ignorant yet well intended question about how many words the toddler could speak and in the second Professor Small refused to intervene despite several requests from the salesman that she stop her toddler from playing with the eyeglasses that were on display. In both scenes Professor Small had good points to make that conflicted with the opinions of the other adults in the scenes, yet in both scenes I felt she behaved in a manner that demeaned the other adults. Beyond those two jarring scenes, I found this book a little light in content. I learned a few things in the chapters that reviewed the current state of knowledge on subjects like child growth and child language but then felt many chapters were meandering and repetitious on issues such as cultural comparisons of child raising.

Rating:
Summary: Needs More Content
Review: I hope Professor Small reads this. There were two self-described scenes in this book that portrayed the author as rude and condescending to the other adult in the scene. The first was Professor Small and her child in a Pediatric room with a nurse and the second was Professor Small and her child in an eyeglasses store with an eyeglasses salesman. In the first scene Professor Small laughed and acted haughty at the nurses slightly ignorant yet well intended question about how many words the toddler could speak and in the second Professor Small refused to intervene despite several requests from the salesman that she stop her toddler from playing with the eyeglasses that were on display. In both scenes Professor Small had good points to make that conflicted with the opinions of the other adults in the scenes, yet in both scenes I felt she behaved in a manner that demeaned the other adults. Beyond those two jarring scenes, I found this book a little light in content. I learned a few things in the chapters that reviewed the current state of knowledge on subjects like child growth and child language but then felt many chapters were meandering and repetitious on issues such as cultural comparisons of child raising.