Magic Trees of the Mind: How to Nurture Your Child's Intelligence, Creativity, and Healthy Emotions from Birth through Adolescence Book

Repetitive and long winded. The book could've been made a lot shorter. It's science-based and doesn't seem to be for lay people, yet doesn't have sub/superscripted numbers to point to citations. There are citations in the back of the book, but they're only numbered by page number.

According to rat experiments, rat pups rehabilitated in enrichment cages developed a thicker cortex than pups well-fed in the womb but raised in a dull place (84). So the book advocates for giving your kids a lot of stimulation to boost their mental development, but not so much that they become overwhelmed or exhausted.

Recommends 5-10 minute music played to fetus, twice daily (99); read to your baby and toddler 20 minutes a day (145).

Advises against both giving kids TV and boredom (31, 109), but doesn't consider the common sense that it's boredom that allows kids to be creative and inventive. Bored rats in a cage with no toys can't be compared to bored human kids, since bored rats aren't capable of the same creativity and inventiveness that human kids are.

"Enriched environments allow the child to be an active participant rather than a passive observer" (108). But school is also mostly a passive observer activity. So is going to a play, planetarium, a magic show, a puppet show, a concert, all of which the book recommends as good stimulations for kids (186).

In an experiment, showing preschool kids "educational shows promoted a mild degree of creative play in children with the least-active imaginations . . . But depressed creative play in all the other kids who had livelier imaginations to start with. Researchers found a similar creativity-suppressing pattern with fourth and fifth graders" (219).

"Adults must encourage children to explore; show them basic skills; praise their accomplishments; help them practice and expand their skills; protect them from disapproval, teasing or punishment; and surround them with a 'rich and responsible language environment'" (160). I didn't like the lines about protecting kids from disapproval or punishment. Those things are part of life, and if parents shield their kids from it, the kids will be sensitive fragile snowflakes unprepared for the real world.

The book complains about not enough girls being in math, science, and engineering. First of all, why does it matter that girls don't choose those fields? There are plenty of other well paying jobs. The book gives mostly ridiculous explanations for the trend. Girls "often lack the confidence to take [advanced math] in high school" (202). When I was in high school, I took geometry and algebra II, and half the classes were made up of females. I assume both boys and girls only took the classes in order to satisfy college requirements, not because they enjoyed the subject. "Many girls and women . . . See science and math careers . . . As incompatible with motherhood" (202). Plenty of females play sports in high school, and this too is considered a masculine activity. Any job in general is incompatible with motherhood because it takes the woman out of the home and away from her kids, but being a housewife hasn't been fashionable for decades, and so STEM careers not being compatible with motherhood isn't likely to be a deterrent for most modern females. The book's only non-ridiculous reason given for why females don't take science, engineering, or advanced math classes is this: Those classes are found to be "dry, boring, and not people-oriented, and although they may still like technical subjects, they like other areas more and tend to gravitate toward them" (202). That's the real reason. Most female brains to find those subjects boring, just as most male brains find a romance novel boring. That's the just common sense truth.

"The average mother spends less than 30 minutes per day interacting directly with her child and the average father less than 15 minutes" (294).

If this book were really concerned with giving kids the best environment in which to grow and thrive, it would be with a parent who stays home with them instead of sending them off to daycare or school to be looked after by strangers who don't love them. But it's not politically correct to give that advice, so what's truly best for the child is ignored. The book's authors seem to lean liberal, viewing school, daycare, and taxpayer funded community activities as children's salvation while parents can mess kids up (301). The authors count it as a victory that schools have become safer; only 36% of tenth graders got accosted or injured at school in 1994, as opposed to 40% in 1991 (267). Whoopee! And the authors viewed Bill Clinton's restrictions on welfare to be a tragedy; they apparently think it's great if poor people can collect government money for life while never getting a job (300).

They also view it as a tragedy that people in San Francisco voted to stop funding those free community services in order to cut their property taxes. San Francisco has one of the highest housing costs in the country. Why should these workers be paying for public services they don't may not even use? The fairest thing is for those who want to use the services to pay for it. And yeah, poor people may not have the money for the services, but what are you afraid those kids will do instead? Do drugs or watch TV? Guess what? Drugs and TV cost money too! So if the poor have money for that junk, they have money for getting into community centers!

The authors also lack common sense when they speculate on why girls suffer a self-esteem drop in adolescence. "One theory holds that as girls mature sexually, they feel a strong sense of connectedness to and caring for others" (250). "Another theory suggests that a young teen's mental development allows him or her, for the very first time, to clearly imagine what other people think of them. This sudden awareness may undermine self-confidence and heighten feelings of awkwardness and incompetence" (250). Wrong. Kids become self-conscious at age 8. The reason teen girls' self-esteem drops is because they compare their bodies with those of their peers and those they see in the media. Teen girls want to have bodies like supermodels, so they feel ugly in comparison.

Interesting facts/statistics:

Sex differences in the brain (247):
"In one region of the temporal lobe, males have 11% fewer neurons than females.
Some researchers have found evidence that the corpus callosum, a bundle of fibers connecting the brain's two hemispheres, is larger in females, especially in the posterior (back) region.
The anterior commissure, which also connects the hemispheres, is larger in females.
Males have a thicker cerebral cortex in the right hemisphere than the left, while in females both hemispheres have a 'bark' layer of equal thickness."
"The male brain begins to grow faster than the female at about two years of age" (119).

Kids' brains burn more sugar while their brains are developing (53), which might explain why kids stay thin easier than teens and adults.

Growth spurts in head size: 3-4 weeks, 7-8 weeks, 10-11 weeks, 17-19 weeks (113). The head doesn't grow when sick.

In an experiment, "one group of children stayed near their mothers for 78% of their time in the lab, and took longer before approaching the new objects. Another group stayed near mom only 1% of the time and explored without hesitation. A third group was intermediate for both clinging and exploring" (124). This could mean that 78% of people are shy.

"Newborns are better at detecting words through their right ear and left brain, and better at detecting musical sounds through their left ear and right brain" (133-134).

"By high school graduation, 63% of American students can't read a tabloid newspaper and 95% can't decipher the New York Times" (137).


Many people think that weed, cigarettes, caffeine, and alcohol are not bad in moderation, but here are some quotes from the book to prove otherwise:

"Mothers who regularly smoke marijuana during pregnancy (and even passive 'weed' users exposed to someone else's smoke three times per week in a closed room) tend to have characteristic pregnancy problems: slow or painful uterine contractions; less milk after delivery; and babies showing more distress during birth. Many of the babies had bowel movements while still in the womb'an uncommon situation that doubles the risk of the newborn's death from various factors. Like cocaine or crack babies, marijuana babies tend to weigh less, to be high-strung and cranky, and to have disturbed sleep/wake cycles" (75).

"The longer you use cannabis, the less able you are to filter out useless details, indicating a negative effect on the frontal cortex. And the more often you use cannabis, the more slowly the brain processes information" (243). "People who smoke marijuana daily scored far lower than light users and nonusers on math and verbal tests, and on tests of memory retrieval" (243).

In an experiment, non-cigarette smokers "performed significantly better than deprived smokers, who in turn outperformed active smokers. Ominously, deprived smokers caused rear-end collisions in the video-simulated driving test 67% more than nonsmokers. But the crash rate for active smokers was 350% higher! People who claim that a cigarette 'clears their head and helps them think' may feel sharper but they aren't. We can only speculate that regular nicotine and carbon monoxide exposure during the brain's final formative years could leave permanent reductions in mental capacity" (242).

"Researchers have conducted dozens of human and animal studies on caffeine use during pregnancy, and have accused the drug of causing miscarriages and stillbirths, early and late births, low birth weight, cleft palate, irritability, poor nerve/muscle coordination, and even childhood diabetes" (76).

"Drinking in the first trimester'especially during weeks 2-8 when the brain is forming along with the facial features'is more likely to cause malformations; drinking in the last trimester is more likely to reduce overall fetal size. But since the brain develops throughout gestation (and beyond), it can be damaged at any point" (77).


In the back of the book, there are recommended books and activities for kids of different ages, but these recommendations are not scientifically based. They are just based on survey results from 300 parents. There are separate recommended books for boys and girls, but most of these are gender neural. I didn't like the list. They seemed random. Some of the books were too difficult for the kids they were supposed to be for. (Peter Rabbit is listed under the 2 year old section; Treasure Island is listed under the 4 year old section; Charlotte's Web & Goosebumps are listed under the 5 year old section; Huck Finn & The Hobbit are listed under the 7 year old section!)

Here's my own list of books that I recommend for kids, for both sexes:

Ages 0-8:
Aesop's fables by pinkney
Ava and the rainbow (who stayed)
Bunga the Wise
Giving tree
Girl who loved caterpillars
Golden rule by ilene cooper
How the finch got his colors
I am Brave by Suzy Capozzi
I am Helpful by Suzy Capozzi
I Love Saturdays Y Domingos
It could always be worse by margot zemach
Last stop on market street
Lorax
Planet name game
Questions, Questions by Marcus Pfister
Shapes: a trapezoid is not a dinosaur, "bees, snails, & peacock tails" by franco, mouse shapes by ellen stoll walsh, which one doesn't belong by danielson
Sneetches
Snowboy and the Last Tree Sanding
Susan B. Anthony: Her Fight For Equal Rights
The Tenth Good Thing About Barney
Tikki tikki tembo
Todd Parr books - environment, peace, being yourself
Tortuga in Trouble - A bilingual retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.
Turning pages
Tuttle Twins Learn about the Law
Unlikely Friends by Gina Gold
Value Tales series
Why am i here? By constance orbeck-nilssen
Why evergreens keep their leaves by guertin
Yertle the turtle

Ages 9-13:
Staying nine
Riding freedom
A Summer to die by lois lowry
Animal farm
Stargirl

Teens:
Black witch by laurie forest
Heroes by robert cormier
His dark materials
Island of the blue dolphins
Fahrenheit 451
Gospel according to larry
Vote for larry
Island of dr. Moreau
1984
Animal dreams by barbara kingsolver
Clan of the cave bear
Crucible
Brave New World
Malice by Jaynes
Strange as This Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake
The Woman Who Did
Iron heel by jack london
Case Against Socialism by Rand Paul
We the Living by Ayn Rand
Wild swans