Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs - Breakthrough Research Every Parent Should Know Book

I'm half way through the book. It takes all the science on early childhood development, brain research and social emotional intelligence and simplifies it. If you are currently not familiar with the recent research on brain development for infants through 3 years old, I recommend this book as a good starting point. However, in simplifying the topics, something is lost.

The books feels like the author is reporting on the current flavor of research. I believe this research will also be explained with further nuance or changed with some significance, acknowledging that would go a long way. I would have appreciated placing some points in historical context. Nothing here is too surprising. The personal examples provided did not draw me into the material. I found a lot of them too short to illustrate much.

I was okay with all of that until I hit sentences that are at best vague. She refers back to an expert without providing a context for the reader. On page 139, Ellen Galinsky writes: Janet Werker points to other assumptions that are not true.

Then she writes the following assumptions in such a manner as to agree with the assumptions, not against them.

It felt like a contradiction and was hard to follow. This is not the case - yes, this is the case. I read it several times before I decided that she agrees with Janet and the assumptions - as phrased in the book. Confusing! There's several moments like this where I found myself stopping to reread a section because I didn't understand what point she was making. And I've been reluctant to pick it back up.