A valuable guide for parents and educators that includes tips on choosing a therapist and parenting strategies.
A veteran clinical psychologist contends that there is a “pervasive tendency in our society to medicalize children's behavior” and “shy away from trusting our own ability to decipher the ordinary human meanings, motives and developmental reasons for why children act the way they do.”
While not denying the necessity for medical treatment of psychiatric disorders, Gnaulati urges caution. He cites instances where simple factors, such as a lag in social and emotional development, have led to a diagnosis of ADHD and a prescription for Ritalin. Recently, Michigan State University economist Todd Elder found a shocking correlation between kindergarteners’ birth dates and their being prescribed ADHD medication. “If a child is behaving poorly,” said Elder, “it may simply be because he's 5 and the other kids are 6.” Gnaulati believes that too frequently, the norm of acceptable behavior for children has been feminized—e.g., typical roughhousing by boys has become unacceptable. Children who speak out of turn, forget their homework and are easily distracted are difficult for teachers to deal with in overcrowded classrooms. It is easier to explain such behaviors in terms of neuropsychology and medicate them than to look for environmental reasons that can be addressed by traditional methods of psychotherapy and family counseling. Gnaulati gives many examples of misdiagnoses: picky eaters prone to tantrums who were prematurely diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders; attention-seeking children who misbehaved; sleep-deprived adolescents who were depressed and irritable. In some instances, the author finds that creative children may be faulted for their independence and out-of-the-box thinking. Gnaulati makes a strong case that an incorrect diagnosis of behavioral problems can be stigmatizing and that prescription drugs frequently have overlooked, negative side effects.
A valuable guide for parents and educators that includes tips on choosing a therapist and parenting strategies.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8070-7334-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK TO SCREEN
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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