Welcome to Your Child's Brain, By Sandra Aamodt

This is a diverting piece of popular science on the way children's brains develop, from embryo to university student.

It is full of curious factoids, such as that the eyesight of children who play outside is measurably better, and that the naughty-step strategy of disciplining kids was derived from observation of lab rats. The author's heartening contention is that you don't have to be a super-parent for your child's intelligence to develop – just a good-enough parent. The vast majority of children are like dandelions, in that they can thrive in almost any conditions. Perhaps this sounds like a silly complaint about a science book, but I did find the hard neurological bits, about what region of the brain does what, rather skippable.

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