Comprehensive data backs up a much-tested system that assists parents in getting their children to a calmer state of mind.
Helping your child destress.
At some point in every child's life, he or she manifests symptoms of what parents often mistakenly identify as misbehavior: the temper tantrum in the store, the refusal to go to bed at the appointed hour, the inability to sit still and concentrate in school. Shanker (Psychology and Philosophy/York Univ.) helps parents realize that many times this "misbehavior" is simply a reaction to excessive stress. Demonstrating how to "[reframe] the perception of a child's behavior,” the author shows that “once you can distinguish between misbehavior and stress behavior, you find yourself better able to pause and reflect when he does something you find disturbing, rather than reacting automatically." By identifying the causes of stress or overstimulation—too much noise, light, cold, or heat, etc.—parents can then work toward reducing these issues. “Self-reg” is a five-step process: one must study the signs of distress, identify the stressors, reduce them, become aware of when these moments occur, and finally figure out what is calming and restful so the child can recover. Often, writes Shanker, it is as simple as turning off the lights and TV and gently rubbing the child's back in a safe spot such as his or her bed. The author bolsters his theories with case studies of real patients whose numerous behavioral issues have been resolved using his five-step method. He also provides plenty of scientific analysis of the way the human brain works and how humans respond to different stimuli. His information is straightforward and will be useful for any age level, from infant to adolescent to adult. When carried out as methodically as Shanker describes, his process should help many parents with children who are simply reacting to our overstimulated world.
Comprehensive data backs up a much-tested system that assists parents in getting their children to a calmer state of mind.Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59420-609-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
