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The next generation of children can become the most intelligent humans who have ever lived. You can help your child lead the way. That is the message I hope to give you in this book. This is a hands-on guide to help your child grow into a full, effective, and natural intelligence. Together, we’ll take a fresh look at what it really means to be intelligent. I’ll show you how new research into human intelligence gives us a practical vision of each child as bursting with potential. I’ll tell you what you need to know about new views of intelligence, show you why they’re important to you and your child, and guide you — step by step — as you apply your new understanding to the delightful and demanding task of raising a child equipped to thrive. The book has three main sources. It argues for three main points. Sources? First, the thousands of children and parents who have come to me asking for my help, and given me their help in return. Second, the book comes from what science has learned about intelligence in the last two decades. Third, and most important to me, it’s about what I’ve learned helping raise my own kids — Paul, my elder, and Andy, three years younger. Both are young adults now. Their wisdom, and their patient efforts to help me understand how I could help them grow, account for much of what I’ve learned about human intelligence. Three main arguments have shaped and influenced everything you’ll read. First, the book argues for a very broad description of what it means to “be intelligent.” Second, it argues that the description needs to be focused on effectiveness — intelligence is a tool to help people meet their goals in the world. To put it another way, I'm more interested in what it means to “act intelligently” than in what it means to “be intelligent.” So the first argument is that the idea of being smart should be a very broad idea, and the second argument is that it should be a very practical idea. Intelligence shouldn’t be some narrow concept — a number a psychologist or a teacher uses to pin children down like so many butterflies on display in a glass case. Instead, I want to show you a dynamic, open-ended , practical way of thinking about children that recognizes their astonishing potential and gives you a map to help them develop that potential to the fullest. Third, the book argues that you'll do your best job for your child if you're having fun. I want to help you approach the task of raising your child with confidence and pleasure. Every word here is meant to calm a fear, almost a panic, that has come to pervade the way our culture thinks about children. We seem to be taking childhood awfully seriously as we step into the new millennium. We hear that our children will have to fight and claw their way into the world if they expect to do more than survive. Even when we try not to listen, the messages of ruthless competition, dwindling opportunity, increasing demands — the threat to these people we love so much — chews on us. It makes us fearful. It can even corrode our common sense and our natural instincts. Our children have to be prepared! Every minute is important! Every homework assignment has to be finished! Wanting to prepare our kids for the worst, we are, paradoxically, in danger of giving them a taste of it. Real intelligence, I constantly argue, is built on a base of enjoyment. Learning is what humans do best. It is our natural state. When we try to force the process, we are in danger of thwarting our own good intentions. In the years since I began to think about this book, perhaps no single idea has moved more steadily to the front and center for me than this: If learning isn’t joyful, if it isn’t pleasurable, it is ineffectual. Learning without satisfaction and pressured, unmotivated acquisition of skills may get us through tonight’s homework. But they won’t get us through life. My son Andy and I were talking about schools, education, and learning. He laughed, slowed his potter’s wheel to a crawl, and expressed in five words an idea I’d struggled to synthesize through the three decades of my professional career: “Your mind is a playground.” What a challenge those five words are to all those bleak messages that tell us that we have to “stay on top” of our kids if they’re to learn enough to survive in the world! But the challenge could be empty, someone might say — just a shout in the wind? No, not Andy’s challenge — it’s good science. We don’t need to force our children to learn — they are made for learning. It’s the fear-driven view that’s bad science. Problems come when learning is forced. When we assume every child needs to learn the same things in the same way. When we believe there is a “right” way to be intelligent or successful. When we look at “How To” books rather than at our child. When we let “experts” talk us out of our deep trust in our children and in our deeply tuned ability to provide what they need. When we essentially try to pound learning into our kids’ heads instead of letting them do what they do so well naturally. My message is one of optimism — that you and your child can shape — along with millions of other parents — a new future, in which each child is encouraged to develop a uniquely personal blend of intelligences to meet life’s challenges and to reach personal goals. My message is also one of encouragement: This task is one you and your child are deeply prepared to do well together. You don’t need a degree in “Brain Engineering” to raise a child! The everyday, time-honored activities that we parents naturally provide our children are the stuff their brains need to grow. The human brain is remarkably good at taking the learning it needs from the opportunities provided to it. To put it bluntly: Give children a fair chance and they’ll take care of the rest. But we have a chance to do a better job than our ancestors: Our new understanding of learning lets us focus and direct our efforts more skillfully. It gives us confidence we’re doing good work. And again and again, it lets us see the value of the many different activities we naturally provide. It lets us say, as we enjoy our child, “Important learning is happening right now.” By the time you finish this book, you’ll have a good deal of factual knowledge under your belt. But that’s not what’s important. Far more useful will be your sense of optimism and confidence that your child was born to be a powerful and effective learner and that you’re the best person on earth to foster that growth. That you can raise a child who is ready for any challenge, able not simply to “succeed” (however you define that slippery word), but to thrive. And that you’ll raise that child best by trusting her and deeply believing that learning is his natural mode — a paramount human ability. We’ll start with some of the necessary scientific background. I will:
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