Mind In The Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
I enjoyed the author's enthusiasm and commitment to her subject: giving children the best possible start in life by developing their Executive Functions (self control, communication skills, planning etc). She does a decent job explaining these concepts with copious examples. Occasionally it's a bit verbose (it takes one to know one) which means that the book is overlong, but it never becomes tedious and is buoyed by her engaging style. Certainly worth dipping into if you're a parent. This may be my new go-to book to give to new parents. While I understand some of the criticisms I've read (it's too broad, gives too many studies per page), all in all I think this is a great overview of the research done into childhood development in the last few decades. It gives a lot of clear, helpful advice on how parents can help their children attain the 7 skills. It also does a good job of not completely freaking parents out about the fact that everything has to be done on a strict timeline--she explicitly says that it's never too late to work with your kids and every day is a new day. I found it super interesting and it gave me ideas to talk about in story times with parents, use in programming and with kids in the library, and just a general idea of how kiddos' brains are forming and how I, as a librarian, can help them. I would recommend it to other children's librarians and teachers, as well as parents.
What do You think about Mind In The Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs (2010)?
Good information but I found myself skimming over the book. A bit too text book style for my taste.
—kia
Interesting how important self control and focus are to learning !
—tiffers93
