Explore evidence-based parenting at the New Westminster Public Library.
The sheer quantity of advice aimed at today’s parents can be overwhelming. Fortunately, amid the deluge there is also an evolving selection of evidence-based resources that can help filter out some of the noise and offer potentially valuable tips.
Building on a broad base of established neuroscience, Stuart Shanker’s Self-Reg updates the advice on cultivating pro-social behavior. Shanker replaces older notions of self-control (think “the marshmallow test”) with a more nuanced conception of self-regulation. Where the former was largely about individual willpower, the latter takes greater account of the surrounding environment. Shanker uses this model to help parents reduce not only their children’s stress but their own too, since the two are often connected.
What works best: rewards or punishments? According to neuroscientist Tali Sharot’s The Influential Mind, it depends. We now know a considerable amount about how the brain responds—and doesn’t respond—to outside influence. Sharot shows how carefully chosen interventions, tailored to the way our minds actually work, can positively influence behavior, whether in the sandbox or the boardroom.
Feel like you’re locked in a power struggle with a picky eater? In First Bite: How We Learn to Eat, Bee Wilson explains food’s place in human development. While the book is more popular science than handbook, it highlights breakthroughs in overcoming picky eating like the “Tiny Tastes” method for habituating kids to eating vegetables. Wilson’s book offers much food for thought, served up in enjoyable writing.
Finally, a number of titles are well-suited to dipping into when conflicting advice becomes bewildering. Available for free at healthyfamiliesbc.ca, Baby’s Best Chance and Toddler’s First Steps are standard, go-to reference sources. (Similarly, the Canadian Pediatric Society’s Caring for Kids website offers reliable advice.) For more information, try books from the library like The Informed Parent by Tara Haelle and Emily Willingham, the latest edition of The Science of Parenting by Margot Sunderland, or Great Myths of Child Development by Stephen Hupp.
For more, visit the library in person, email [email protected] or call 604-527-4660.
