This is my go-to grounding book for parenting. It calms all the voices of "genius" hype and allows me to parent as one human to another. Every time that I read this book (three so far), I find a new parenting nugget that I can integrate.

I've mentioned this book to some of you and am just now adding it. It's not a cover to cover book for me but a good view of child development and psychology academically. It talks a lot about not pushing conventional learning too hard in a child's early years. A great book for anyone but especially those getting ready to send kids off to kindergarten. Oh, and there are some updated versions from the one that I read.

Who else but a potentially pushy parent would read a book on how their child's mind develops? Dr. Healy does a good job dissuading her readers from employing classically pushy parental techniques and cites extensive research to back her claims that creative play, fun-yet-structured environments, loving caregivers, and a chaos-free home environment are the ticket to helping a child reach his or her fullest potential.

That said, I had trouble swallowing her lack of emphasis on skills and repetitive drills. While I can understand her idea that important neurological development occurs through play, I had difficulty understanding her dismissal of formal academic learning and traditional modes of study. At one point she even asserts that children should not formally study music until age 8(!!!). I disagree.

But this book has lots of helpful tips and activities for parents and children, and I plan on using it as a reference guide for the future. I'm glad I read this book.

This book seems to contain a reasonably good set of information, but not always at the depth that I'd like, and not organized in the most useful way.

Reading it with a newborn in the house was actually a bit frustrating, because there's no effort at chronological organization, so you have to either read the whole thing or do some major skipping around to find the parts that are relevant to your life right now. Also, the coverage of young babies takes up a very small portion of the book anyway, so this is really more useful as a general overview.

This was a gift from a friend who said it was one of her favorite parenting books. I found it informative. The main point I took from it was that the pace of a child's learning does not necessarily correspond to their adult IQ. Some kids who develop slowly (learn to speak or read later than others) will still be just as smart as their peers who crossed their milestones earlier, sometimes even smarter. The key is to not "track" these students academically with low expectations for their capabilities, but to have patience and help them learn at their own pace.

I thought it was annoying that the author referred to her other books throughout-- as in, "this is a problem which I discuss in detail in my other book, x" rather than give us a few paragraphs about the subject in question. But other than that, I thought the book was well-written and easy to read without a lot of educational jargon.

Outstanding. I finished the ebook and promptly bought the hard copy to read again. Perfect book for parents of neuro-typical or diverse kids, regardless of schooling method or family situation. Worth any parent’s time.

Outstanding

Practical, insightful, helpful and comforting parenting advice and information. I’ve never read a parenting book that was such a page turner. I will definitely read this again.

Very informative!

In my humble opinion, this is the BEST book for parents of all ages!! It explains in easy-to-understand terminology how a child's brain develops and WHY they act and react the way they do. Dr. Healy provides anecdotes and suggestions on when children are ready for reading!! I loved her original edition, but I prefer her newer book (2004).

A wonderful book that inspires you to keep expanding your own mind as well as the minds of your children. Very strong on true mental development and creativity ; she’s very strongly against simply cramming information and training into little heads. Some great quotes:

“Learning that arises from personal experience helps brains at any age receive, associate, organize, and comprehend at appropriate neural levels.”

“Childhood is a process, not a product, and so is learning.”

“Real intelligence comes from real experiences and real people.” (A real slap at too much screen time, although she’s not against utilizing computers in the learning process).

Conclusion of the book:
“Learning is something that children do not something that is done to them. You have the wisdom to guide the process but not the power to control it. Listen, watch, have patience, enjoy the journey- and the product will take care of itself.”

Seemed to have many good points as I was reading it.
However, now that I am done I don't remember to many takeaways.
I will need to reread this again to say for sure, but it seems like it could be very useful.

Healy belongs to a school of thought that believes kids have to develop appropriate neural architecture before they can learn.

On the plus side, she recommends a relatively laid-back approach to parenting. She believes there's not much point in trying to drill kids on reading or math before they're ready, and she thinks (with supporting evidence) that a lot of the activities that kids think are fun--sorting things, squishing around in the mud, climbing trees, sitting on laps for story time, even hanging upside down--build the neural "hooks" that they need to later hang skills and facts on. Her vision of childhood is fairly idyllic--lots of quality time with parents and books and such, but more time playing outside and less time with flash cards.

She is a little more dogmatic than I entirely buy, though. She's very emphatic that teaching kids to read too early will use the wrong parts of the brain and impede later learning. And she's vehemently anti-screen. I fully buy milder versions, but I'm not sure I quite believe it all as strongly as she does. Am I being foolish? She is the expert. I have looked at other people's work, though, and I see more wiggle room than she will admit.

Overall, it's a solid book, with a lot of explanations of what's going on cognitively as well as a lot of practical advice.