3 Quotes on Raising a Brighter Child Translated for Stupid Parents

How to Raise a Brighter Child is one of my favorite books on parenting, mostly because it shares so many useful tips toward the goal of raising smarter kids.

When initially writing this post, for another blog, I was going to give a sampling of those tips via a selection of relevant quotes. However, about halfway through, I decided to shelve that idea and have a little fun instead.

Here, then, are three quotes on raising a brighter child translated for "stupid" parents:

1. "The force of gravity is the one constant point around which a baby systematizes all the spatial relationships he is working out for himself during his early sensorimotor stage of life."

This means that your kid’s going to throw a lot of stuff. Try not to stress out about it.

2. “In talking to their offspring, [effective] parents ‘consider the baby’s purpose of the moment’ and .  . . ‘do not prolong the exchange longer than the baby wants.’”

This means that when your kid asks what time it is, don’t respond with a lecture on the history of clocks or how they’re made.

3. “Give your preschooler the courtesy of listening to her with as much regard and attention as you’d give an adult guest in your home.”

This means that you should treat your kid as if you invited her into your house. After all, in choosing to have and care for a child at all, you kind of did.

I wanted to translate even more than this, but the book is notably absent of gobbledygook; the above three being the closest it comes to being complex.

Have you read it yet? What did you think?