NurtureShock is a revolutionary new perspective on childhood that up-ends a library’s worth of conventional wisdom. Nothing like a parenting manual, NurtureShock gets to the core of how we grow, learn and live.

The central premise of this book is that many of modern society’s strategies for nurturing children are in fact backfiring – because key twists in the science have been overlooked.

The resulting errant assumptions about child development have distorted parenting habits, school programs, and social policies. They affect how we think about kids, and thus how we interpret child behavior and communicate with the young. The intent of this book is not to be alarmist, but to teach us to think differently – more deeply and clearly – about children.

About the Authors

Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman’s New York Magazine articles on the science of parenting won the magazine journalism award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Clarion Award. Their articles for Time Magazine have won the award for outstanding journalism from the Council on Contemporary Families. Prior to collaborating, Bronson authored five books, including the #1 New York Times bestseller What Should I Do With My Life? Merryman’s journalism has appeared in The Washington Post and The National Catholic Reporter.

Bronson lives in San Francisco, with his wife and two children. Merryman lives in Los Angeles, where she runs a church-based tutoring program for inner-city children.