Nurture the Nature: Understanding and Supporting Your Child's Unique Core Personality by Michael Gurian
	List Price:   $24.95 Unit Price:   $19.96 You Save:   $4.99 (20%) ISBN-10:   078798633X ISBN-13:   9780787986339 Publisher:   John Wiley & Sons; Jossey-Bass Category:   Family/Relationships Pub. Date:   April 2007 Pages:   352 Format:   Trade Cloth
Subjects
CHILD PSYCHOLOGY INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES CHILD REARING PARENTING
Description/Notes
Best-selling parenting and education guru Michael Gurian follows up his bestselling The Minds of Boys with a new book on how the latest brain science can help our children flourish and thrive by supporting who they really are, not what social trends parenting tells us to expect. All moms and dads know instinctively that all children are different, unique and have special potentials. None is a blank slate. Each has its own hard wiring, temperament, character, personality, weaknesses and strengths, based on brain structure, neurological development, gender, and genetic predisposition. This ground breaking book shows us how to know our children, and appreciate their differences, including special tips for parents of newborn babies. It gives us the tools to understand their core nature and nourish it depending on their one-of-a-kind genetic predisposition, biological hard-wiring, and stage of development. Gurian has spent 25 years in academic research and clinical field study. His Gurian Institute has applied their research in dozens of large school districts across the country and with parents everywhere. They have thirty trainers criss-crossing the country and in countries abroad. This book put together all of Gurian's work to date in a practical book for every expectant and newborn mother (and father). It's simple, and intuitive, but it also has the fascinating brain science to back it up. 'As scientifically sound as it is humane.' --Harold s. Koplewicz, M.D., chairman, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine and founder and director, New York University Child Study Center 'Nurture the Nature is thorough, thoughtful, accurate, and brilliant. The science is sound and well researched.'--Daniel Amen, M.D., author, Making a Good Brain Great 'Michael Gurian has once again produced a magnificent book on children, this one showing us how to appreciate and indeed capitalize on the unique nature within each child. Nurture the Nature should be mandatory reading for parents who want their children to mature into happy healthy human beings--which is of course all of us!'--Dr. Tracey J. Shors, department of psychology, Center for Collaborative Neuroscience, Rutgers University 'Nurture the Nature is up-to-the-minute, filled with wisdom, and an intensely moral book, concerned with helping a child develop a sense of purpose in life, and promoting self-reliance and self-discipline in children. Both as a mother and a psychologist, I could not put this book down!'--Judith Kleinfeld, professor of psychology, University of Alaska , and national director of The Boys Project As a parent myself, I believe one of the greatest challenges to parenting well is to see who your individual child really is. Nurture the Nature gives parents the ability to do just that--and to understand the complex issues that shape our children today.'--Rosalind Wiseman, author, Queen Bees and Wannabes 'A wealth of practical advice on how to escape the competitive pressure of social trends parenting and instead nurture the core nature of your child.'--Michele Borba, Ed.D., author, 12 Simple Secrets Real Moms Know and Building Moral Intelligence 'Gurian???s presentation is comprehensive and peppered with fascinating facts (i.e., how pheromones of biological fathers affect the onset of girls??? puberty or how parts of a toddler???s brain actually swell during a tantrum). The author???s new text will help parents begin, in the tradition of Maria Montessori, to ???follow the child,??? rather than adapt their kids to a contemporary one-size-fits-all mold.' (Publishers Weekly, April 2, 2007) 'Your child's core nature is thrilling to observe and appreciate as it unfolds before your eyes. It's wonderful to feel confident as a parent, to tailor parenting techniques to fit the unique needs of your child's nature.' -From the Introduction From Michael Gurian, the best-selling author of The Minds of Boys and The Wonder of Girls, comes the next-step book that shows how any parent can tune into a child's unique core personality, hard wiring, temperament, and genetic predisposition in order to help that child flourish and thrive. Based on the most recent brain research, Nurture the Nature features the Ten Tips for Nurturing the Nature of Your Baby, self-tests, checklists, and many other tools for you to help your kids get exactly the kind of support they need, from infants to adolescents. While offering positive ideas for nurturing your child, Gurian also shows how to avoid the stress, pressures, and excessive competition of what he identifies as social trends parenting. Most parents know instinctively that their child is unique and has special potential, weaknesses, and strengths. No child is a blank slate. Gurian calls on parents to turn away from one-size-fits-all approaches and instead support the individual core nature of a child with effective and customized loving care. Nurture the Nature offers a rare combination of solid research and compelling case history that will help you develop the consistency and confidence you need for parenting your children in a way that respects who they really are. How to avoid the stress and pressure of parenting by helping children be who they really are This groundbreaking book, based on bestselling author Michael Gurian's latest research in baby and child brain science, shows all moms and dads how to know their children and appreciate their unique core personality, temperament, genetic predisposition, and hard-wiring. Featuring the Top 10 Tips for Newborn Parents, self-tests, checklists, and many other ways for parents to evaluate their kids, Gurian shows how to tune in to children's natures to help them flourish and thrive, avoiding the stress, pressures, and competition of 'social trends' parenting, which relies on quick-fix articles, television, and pop-psychology books. All parents know instinctively that each child is different, unique, and has special potentials, weaknesses, and strengths. None is a blank slate. What Gurian has done with this revolutionary parenting guide is provide the way to avoid constantly changing trends and fads based on generalized conventional expectations-a one-size-fits-all approach-and instead to support the unique core nature of each child with the most effective and customized nurture and loving care. Gurian has spent 25 years in academic research and clinical field study. His Gurian Institute has applied their research in dozens of large school districts across the country and with parents everywhere. This book puts together all of his work to date in a practical volume for every expectant and newborn mother (and father). All parents will love his combination of research and case history with intuitive comfort and reassurance. Michael Gurian (Spokane, WA) is the bestselling author of The Wonder of Boys (1-58542-528-1), The Wonder of Girls (0-7434-1703-8), Boys and Girls Learn Differently (0-7879-6117-5), The Minds of Boys (see page 2), and many other books that together have sold more than 800,000 copies in the U.S. and are translated into 18 foreign languages. His work has often been featured in the major media, including the Today show, Good Morning America, CNN, NPR, the New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. Noted author Gurian (The Wonder of Boys) here advocates that parents reject what he calls the 'social trends parenting system'-i.e., following popular parenting fads-and instead focus on the unique talents, proclivities, and temperaments with which children are born. He spends a good deal of the book laying out the scientific aspects of personality and temperament, delving into recent brain research that, for instance, shows how gender and other factors play a role in personality development. While Gurian's overall message is worthy, many parents may find some of his recommendations confusing and even alarming. He seems to advocate for specialized medical tests, such as brain scans and blood tests, in the absence of any real reason for performing them, treating them as tools to help parents better understand a child's 'core nature.' His use of that term itself is problematic, as it sometimes refers to personality and other times to medical issues. His statements about certain areas of research and popular culture are also inaccurate, e.g., he misunderstands the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, equating shyness with introversion. Still, parents may be able to take away the important and liberating idea that knowing your child is the best parenting advice of all. Fans of Gurian's other books will be pleased; those who want to understand better how personality affects child development would be better served by Elizabeth Murphy's The Developing Child. -Rachel Davis, Thomas Memorial Lib., Cape Elizabeth, ME (Library Journal, May 1, 2007) Family therapist Gurian (The Wonder of Girls) approaches his nature-based theme from a slightly different angle in his latest work, urging parents to buck 'social trends parenting' and make decisions based on the core personality of their individual child. A researcher of brain science and gender differences, Gurian believes that much of a child's behavior is inborn from the start. But Gurian sees a disturbing trend in parents' increasing willingness to disregard their own instincts, letting media and society-driven fads dictate the way they raise their kids. In his own 'clinical detective work,' he has found that children are becoming bogged down by activity overload and the 'material anxiety' that arises from trying to keep up with the latest designer fads or electronic gadgets. Gurian presents an in-depth, chapter-by-chapter analysis of child development, beginning at infancy and ending in early adulthood. Gurian's presentation is comprehensive and peppered with fascinating facts (i.e., how pheromones of biological fathers affect the onset of girls' puberty or how parts of a toddler's brain actually swell during a tantrum). The author's new text will help parents begin, in the tradition of Maria Montessori, to 'follow the child,' rather than adapt their kids to a contemporary one-size-fits-all mold.(May) (Publishers Weekly, April 2, 2007) Family therapist Gurian (The Wonder of Girls) approaches his nature-based theme from a slightly different angle in his latest work, urging parents to buck 'social trends parenting' and make decisions based on the core personality of their individual child. A researcher of brain science and gender differences, Gurian believes that much of a child's behavior is inborn from the start. But Gurian sees a disturbing trend in parents' increasing willingness to disregard their own instincts, letting media and society-driven fads dictate the way they raise their kids. In his own 'clinical detective work,' he has found that children are becoming bogged down by activity overload and the 'material anxiety' that arises from trying to keep up with the latest designer fads or electronic gadgets. Gurian presents an in-depth, chapter-by-chapter analysis of child development, beginning at infancy and ending in early adulthood. Gurian's presentation is comprehensive and peppered with fascinating facts (i.e., how pheromones of biological fathers affect the onset of girls' puberty or how parts of a toddler's brain actually swell during a tantrum). The author's new text will help parents begin, in the tradition of Maria Montessori, to 'follow the child,' rather than adapt their kids to a contemporary one-size-fits-all mold.(May) ('Publishers Weekly,' April 2, 2007) From Michael Gurian, the best-selling author of The Minds of Boys and The Wonder of Girls, comes the next-step book that shows how any parent can tune into a child's unique core personality, hard wiring, temperament, and genetic predisposition in order to help that child flourish and thrive. Based on the most recent brain research, Nurture the Nature features the Ten Tips for Nurturing the Nature of Your Baby, self-tests, checklists, and many other tools for you to help your kids get exactly the kind of support they need, from infants to adolescents. While offering positive ideas for nurturing your child, Gurian also shows how to avoid the stress, pressures, and excessive competition of what he identifies as social trends parenting. Most parents know instinctively that their child is unique and has special potential, weaknesses, and strengths. No child is a blank slate. Gurian calls on parents to turn away from one-size-fits-all approaches and instead support the individual core nature of a child with effective and customized loving care. Following on from 'The Minds of Boys', Gurian shows parents how to tune in to their child's core personality, temperament, and genetic predisposition to help them flourish and thrive, avoiding the pressures and competition of social trends parenting - all based on the latest brain science. This groundbreaking book, based on bestselling author Gurian's latest research, shows moms and dads how to know their children and appreciate their unique core personality, temperament, genetic predisposition, and hard-wiring so that they may flourish and thrive.