If there is one thing developmental psychologists have learned over the years, it is that parents dont have to be brilliant psychologists to succeed. They dont have to be supremely gifted teachers. Most of the stuff parents do with flashcards and special drills and tutorials to hone their kids into perfect achievement machines dont have any effect at all. Instead, parents just have to be good enough. They have to provide their kids with stable and predictable rhythms. They need to be able to fall in tune with their kids needs, combining warmth and discipline. They need to establish the secure emotional bonds that kids can fall back upon in the face of stress. They need to be there to provide living examples of how to cope with the problems of the world so that their children can develop unconscious models in their heads.

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About David Brooks, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement

David Brooks, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement.

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