Reddit mentions: The best development psychology books

Hi fellow mama. I'm a Montessori primary (ages 2.5-6) teacher (sometimes we're also called "guides" depending on the school). My 19 month old is currently enrolled in a Montessori toddler program. I'm happy to answer any other specific questions you have, and I'll try to go through your post bit by bit to address the questions you list.


First, unfortunately the name "Montessori" isn't trademarked in any way, so any school or daycare can call itself a Montessori school without actually implementing Montessori theory or philosophy. Look for a school that is either accredited by (higher standard, more work for the school to do this) or affiliated with (still good, all teachers are Montessori trained, among other standards) the American Montessori Society (AMS) or the Association Montessori International (AMI). If you're interested, I can go more into the general difference between AMI and AMS schools, but just know that both are good and both are "true" Montessori schools.


Second, I saw that you mentioned mixed-age classrooms, which are indeed a big part of the Montessori philosophy. The exception to this is the toddler class, which is typically 18-36 months or thereabouts. Otherwise, the classrooms are set up in 3 year age groups (3-6, 6-9, 9-12, etc.). This is really not such a "minor" thing at all; this is a huge part of what makes the classrooms successful. Younger children benefit tremendously from watching their older classmates work with different materials and model appropriate behavior. Older children love being the "big kids" and helping their younger classmates. The younger ones often learn better from a peer than from adults, anyway. Furthermore, I think it's just good for helping the little ones learn how to be part of a community- other than school, when else are we expected to work with people exactly our same age and do the exact same thing at the same time as them? Rarely or never, in my experience. Another piece of the mixed-age classroom is that it allows each child to work at his or her own pace, not dictated by what the "average" 4 year old should be doing, or what the kindergarten pacing guide says to do for reading lessons for the second week of November, for example. (I used to teach in public school and this aspect of teaching drove me batty. On any given day, what I was supposed to teach was only appropriate for about 25% of the class, the rest either needed to move more slowly or more quickly.) I have a 3 year old in my classroom who is reading simple readers. I also have a 5 year old working on those same readers. Very different children in very different places, but they're able to make their way through the curriculum at their own pace. The mixed age classroom allows for this without any child being "ahead" or "behind" or being seen that way by their peers.


"Preschool" generally vs. Montessori: A true Montessori preschool is accredited by or affiliated with AMI or AMS, as I mentioned above. Also discussed above, a Montessori preschool experience should be a 3 year commitment- 3 year old year, 4 year old year and 5 year old year (kindergarten). After completing this 3 year cycle, your child should be ready for first grade. Other preschools are typically year by year and many preschools don't have kindergarten classes. There are other "specialty" types of preschools- Reggio Emilia and Waldorf come to mind. Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot of expertise in those areas to speak too much to them, but they're both more child-centered than a traditional preschool. (This next part is my opinion only- my experience with Waldorf is that it's a little kooky for my taste, but do your research and decide what best fits your family.) We also have an "outdoor" preschool in town that is almost exclusively outdoors all day or in a yurt in the case of really awful weather. Those are becoming increasingly popular, so you may have one in your area, especially if you live in a liberal area and/or a big city. Other than that, most other schools I'm aware of are more traditional preschools. In terms of an introduction to Montessori, the AMS webpage has a good intro and video here. There is evidence for the benefits of Montessori education. Angeline Lillard is one of the primary researchers in this area. Her book Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius goes into a lot of good detail. You can also find shorter papers of hers that give a more condensed version of the findings.


Re: when to enroll in preschool. This is really a personal question and I think it depends a lot on your child and your family and your childcare needs. The one hard and fast piece of advice I have is, if possible, enroll your child in pre-K before sending them to kindergarten (especially if it's a public school kindergarten...that transition from being home with a parent or nanny to public school is rough on everyone in my experience). My son is really independent and always has been, plus he loves other children and adults, so I felt he'd really thrive in a school environment vs. his in-home daycare he was in last year. I wasn't disappointed. This is just my personal opinion, but if your child is going to be in daycare or some kind of childcare anyway (vs. being home with a caregiver), I'd transition to a "school" rather than a daycare earlier rather than later, just because I see every day how amazing and capable young children are and how their minds are just like little sponges. So if my son is going to be taking everything in, I want it to be the most enriching environment possible for him. For him, it seemed he would be ready for a more "school-like" environment this year because of how independent he is and how much he enjoys new situations and new people. That's just me and my child, though. I think a child with a different temperament my well have benefited from the smaller more homey environment for another year, but my son is a little social butterfly (not sure where he gets it because my husband and I are both pretty introverted...).


I think that covered all of your questions, but if you have any more, please let me know and I'm happy to answer them or pull more resources. As a teacher, I love Montessori because it's everything I love about teaching and almost none of the toxic public school teaching experience. As a parent, my experience has been nothing but positive as well.

"Advocating" for is very different to "proof". We agree that science (or anything) cannot prove God. Hence why my argument is made on moral grounds as opposed to logical grounds.

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I oppose your conception of "the dogma of religion" .

I don't think you have to blindly accept beliefs in order to be religious. I think one ought to consider the various claims made by various religions, evaluate them within their personal framework of understanding and then include these claims as part of that framework should they deem them coherent.

I have seen some examples of dogmatic religion, but mostly through the media. My actual experiences of faith are that individuals' beliefs are patchwork, varied and yet accepted. People in my church/other churches I have visited do not test each other with "don't you believe X?". An individual is responsible for professing their own faith, one cannot judge the faith of another (so the Bible tells us). Maybe I have a very luck suite of churches in my city, but I don't know a Christian that would stay at a church where the pastor said "believe X no matter what, even if there is no evidence for X and even if other evidence contradicts X".

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Obviously I agree with your point about Buddhism. Fab religion with some strange bits (like many others) . For me, the character of Jesus is very important, I find him more relatable than Buddha (but I think that's personal). Buddhism is more individually oriented than Christianity, in that enlightenment can be achieved with isolation, meditation and removal of oneself from the world (as I understand it). Christianity is different in that it basically commands community living. We must act together for any good to come of our actions.

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Finally, regarding supernatural thinking. I am fond of the theory that we are spiritually inclined by nature. Name a society in history that developed to be atheist? Better yet, name a cohesive and progressive society in history that was atheist?

We are evolutionarily adapted to perceive patterns everywhere (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia), and this naturally lead to us forming complex beliefs around these patterns in order to place the chaos around us within some sort of interpretable frame.
Here's a good book on the topic by a lecturer in my department: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Superstition-Developing-Creates-Supernatural/dp/0061452653/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449500099&sr=1-1

Spiritual thinking gives us a great many advantages as a species, and it has given rise to basically all modern science, philosophy and art. We apply "supernatural thinking" all the time in almost every aspect of our lives. Things like belief in the greater good, a coherent sense of self, the idea of good and evil, patriotism, luck, superstition, optimism, trust in induction (future events turning out like past events) all result from irrational and "supernatural" thinking which helps frame/control the UTTER FREAKING CHAOS that is reality. Sorry, that's a rubbish list, it's the end of the day and my brain is out of ideas. Do you see my point however?

This is an interesting question, and it's a question that I don't know the answer to.

I'll give you a brief outline though of what I know about the possibility of increasing one's IQ/intelligence (the relationship between IQ and intelligence is itself a complicated subject).

First lets deal with heritability of IQ. The most popular estimate of the heritability of IQ among adults seems to be 0.8 or 80%. This is the estimate I've read from the APA (American Psychological Association) and from reading other sources on IQ.

However a common misconception that many people believe is that an 80% heritability means that 80% of one's IQ is due to their genes, which is wrong. What 80% heritability actually means is that 80% of the variability in IQ within a population can be explained by genetic differences.

Here's a quote from a University website that explains it with an example

http://psych.colorado.edu/~carey/hgss/hgssapplets/heritability/heritability.intro.html

>Heritability and environmentability are population concepts. They tell us nothing about an individual. A heritability of .40 informs us that, on average, about 40% of the individual differences that we observe in, say, shyness may in some way be attributable to genetic individual difference. It does NOT mean that 40% of any person's shyness is due to his/her genes and the other 60% is due to his/her environment.

Next lets deal with the Flynn effect.The Flynn Effect is the observation that for the past few decades, there has been an increase in average IQ by 3 points every 10 years. The relevant question here however is, does this imply that people are getting more intelligent? I personally don't know the answer to that, and I'm not sure if there is a settled answer in the psychometric community. However I do know that Flynn himself has expressed doubt on the view that we are getting more intelligent. I will provide 3 supporting pieces here:

Flynn himself has written in an essay (that I unfortunately have lost and have been unable to find for a few months) that he does not believe that the Flynn Effect is caused by an increase in general intelligence/g/g factor (this is a technical term).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)

There is also empirical evidence from psychometric research that the rise in average IQ (I.E. the Flynn Effect) is correlated negatively with the g-loading of a test. In simple language, this just means that broadly speaking if an IQ subtest relies heavily on general intelligence, there has been a smaller increase in the average than on IQ subtests that don't rely heavily on general intelligence.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613000226

There is also the question of if an average IQ increase of 3 points does not mean we are getting more intelligent, than what does The Flynn Effect mean?

Flynn himself has a great TedTalk answering this question, since as I mentioned before Flynn himself does not believe that we have gotten more intelligent. A TLDR of his explanation is that he thinks The Flynn Effect is due to a huge shift in the way we are taught to think about things and how we view the world. In his words, he believes humans have developed more sophisticated "mental artillery."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vpqilhW9uI

Lastly if you've been bored by my blathering here and just want a straight forward "Yes" or "no" answer, like I said I don't know the answer. However I do know two experts who each express the opposite answer to the question.

In this book written by an intelligence expert, he claims that little can be done to increase one's IQ however over a person's lifetime their fluid IQ will peak in their mid/late twenties then slowly decline thereafter whereas people's crystallized IQ steadily increases throughout their life

https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-That-Matters-Stuart-Ritchie-ebook/dp/B00RTY0LPO/

Whereas I have emailed Flynn before about a question related to this question, and he told me that in his book (that I will link below) he explains why he thinks that it is possible to increase one's IQ through hard work.

https://www.amazon.com/Does-your-Family-Make-Smarter/dp/1316604462/

No problem and thank you for the compliment. Overall, I love experiential and psychodynamic theories but I try to approach any theory as a means to an end. Any clinician that becomes too dogmatic risks missing the point (that is, helping the client and not serving your own ends). I like playing between affect and behavior with clients and attachment theory is behind it all for me.

In any case, why don't you ask an easier question? Haha. There is so much material out there for each modality that I could recommend plenty.

Strengths-focused

• 1001 Solution-Focused Questions by Fredrike Bannink
  
  
• Positive CBT by Fredrike Bannink
  
  
• Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman
  
  Experiential
  
  
• Learning Emotion-Focused Therapy by Robert Elliott
  
  
• Emotion-Focused Therapy, 2nd ed. by Les Greenberg
  
  
• Focusing in Clinical Practice by Ann Cornell
  
  Attachment
  
  
• Attachment in Psychotherapy by David Wallin
  
  
• Affect Regulation Theory by Daniel Hill
  
  
• The Healing Power of Emotion by Diana Fosha, Daniel Siegel, & Martin Solomon, ed.
  
  Psychodynamic
  
  
• The Transforming Power of Affect by Diana Fosha
  
  
• Treating Affect Phobia by Leigh McCullough
  
  
• Psychodynamic Therapy: A Guide to Evidence-Based Practice by Richard Summers and Jacques Barber
  
  
• Time-Limited Dynamic Psychotherapy by Hanna Levenson
  
  
• Negotiating the Therapeutic Alliance by Jeremy Safran
  
  Hope that helps! Feel free to PM me too. I wonder if /u/evilqueenoftherealm would have any suggestions too.

First thing's first, "primitive psychology" isn't a thing and is actually pretty racist. I would use "traditional societies" although I understand that means something different in sociology. Anyway.

For cross-cultural variation in spatial language and cognition, Levinson 2003 (pdf) is the go-to book. There is also a book by Mishra and Dasen which I've only recently started, but so far seems good. It's less of an overview and more advanced than the Levinson book. Those books will probably give you all the citations you need but if you have more specific requests, I can give you more.

For perceptions of time, Rafael Nuñez and others at the cogsci department in UCSD are a good place to start. You can see his publications list here. You'd also do well to read about grammaticalization of temporal categories such as tense and aspect markers from spatial categories such as locative adposition (which also segues into your next question). This book is probably the best for that, but be warned that grammaticalization is an advanced linguistic concept which you will have trouble understanding without at least an into class's worth of knowledge of linguistics.

Other than grammaticalization, you will want to look at linguistic typology. Again, this can require a fairly advanced knowledge of linguistics to properly understand. With anything typology, the first place to start is the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS). The stuff you're interested in will be here under "verbal categories". It sounds like you might also be interested in the "Lexicon" section as well. Here on WALS you can find maps which show you what languages across the world do things in what ways. You might be interested in 65-78 and 129-143. There's more on typology, but I'm not really sure what the best works are. I can throw out some names though: Bernard Comrie, Greville Corbett, Martin Haspelmath, Johanna Nichols, Balthasar Bickel and Anna Siewierska.

For more poppy books which talk about cross-linguistic diversity, try When Languages Die by David Harrison and Dying Words by Nick Evans.

Get this book and read it ASAP:

"The Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to do When a Parent's Love Rules Your Life"

In addition:

Google Voice has a neat feature where you can create a custom voicemail greeting just for a particular number. Get a Google Voice number and forward your phone number to it.

If it's your nosy aunt, have the custom greeting tell her that she can talk to you once a week.

Then when you DO talk to her, talk about all your amazing adventures of the week. Stuff like how you caught a terrorist and saved Cincinnati in the process, how you got to hang with director Peter Jackson and now you have an invitation to go to New Zealand, that you are working with a billionaire to design a new casino in Las Vegas, etc. Oh yeah, don't forget to tell her that you are now secretly dating (insert name of famous female celebrity here.)

Heck, if she is going to broadcast your life to the whole family and she is not give a shit about your sense of boundaries or your privacy, you might as well have some fun with it.

So this is outside of my wheelhouse as I'm not a developmental psychologist, but I've taken several graduate level development classes and I have a book in my office on lifespan development so I can try to synthesize an answer from it. Disclaimer, I am relying on the authors as experts and these many not be the only theories of development.

The book is "Lifespan Development: Resources, Challenges, and Risks" by Hendry and Kloep originally written in 2002.

So the question is basically asking if an individuals personality changes due to the changes an individual experiences during puberty. As a result, individuals who look like they have not hit puberty have not had these personality changes occur. The book has a short section on how puberty specifically affects development.

One of the major changes that comes with puberty is the changes we all experience to our body. So we get taller, our arms get longer, and we generally feel weird and awkward. All of these changes force adolescents to examine their own body as they're becoming more aware of their outwards appearance for several reasons. One of these reasons is this is when our reproductive organs are maturing and we develop much of our sexual identity. As we begin to notice the bodies of our peers maturing and feeling sexually attracted to them, we also self-reflect on what our own body looks like and how others may view it as being attractive or not. You could argue (although i'm not sure this is what the authors are getting at) that this self-reflection goes beyond just body image to how you're perceived by your peers. So changes in personality occur because we're more aware of how others perceive us than we are before puberty.

There are also all sorts of social pressures that come with puberty. As you begin wanting to date and have relationships with another individual you're changing and modifying your social structure as well. So you're reaching out to new individuals to join your social group (through a relationship) and you're doing more social activities as you go out on dates. In addition you're also supporting those around you who are attempting similar things as adolescents typically have to rely on each other for support in developing their sexual identity.

To answer your question, I would argue (based on reading this chapter) that the people who have not hit puberty yet may not have these shifts in their body and their social structure that force them to self-reflect and empathize with others, which is why they appear to not have gone through the same personality maturation process as their older looking peers.

EDIT: There are lots of other changes going on during adolescents as well, but I don't know how strongly they're tied to puberty. Example, there is other discussion in this thread about how the frontal lobes of the brain continue to develop and mature well into "adulthood" and these changes really begin in adolescents. I don't have a source to say these changes in the frontal lobes (and other changes) happen because of the same hormonal changes that cause our bodies to grow to look older as mentioned by the OP, so I have avoided discussing those changes in this post.

>I hadn’t considered using lesbian family dynamics before but I’ll definitely check them out, anything helps right now

Yes, look into that and also into family dynamics of open adoptions, especially the typical open-adoption scenario where it's a straight married couple who adopts, and only the bio-mom is involved, not both bio-parents (i.e. there are three known parents, of whom two are the same gender, and they have to figure out how to explain this to the child). If you find an open adoption where it's a straight couple maintaining a relationship with a bio-dad, that could obviously be helpful too, but that's really really unusual.

Meanwhile, some links:
Lesbian couple with involved sperm donor:
https://offbeathome.com/using-brother-for-sperm-donor/

Research on such families: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4498173/

Cambridge psychologist who specializes in alternative families, talking about three-parent families (particularly families where there was a sperm donor, egg donor or surrogate involved): https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/oct/07/three-parent-families-susan-golombok - BTW she wrote a book you might be interested in: https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Families-Parents-Children-Family/dp/1107650259

>She raised me as a single mom, never even dated another man, and dedicated her life to raising me. We had a great relationship. The first time she met this guy, she immediately did not like him.

As others have said, it's about the betrayal of, in her mind, your deep, otherworldly bond to think something is important enough to break away from her, be it college or a BF. It sounds like she's enmeshed with you. That's how it was between my mom and me.

This book is AMAZING:
The Emotional Incest Syndrome
http://www.amazon.com/The-Emotional-Incest-Syndrome-Parents/dp/055335275X
It really helped me to get my head on straight about my mom, and how fucked up it was, even though it was all done under the guise of sacrifice and love. If you can get it out of the library over winter break, it might be an interesting read for you.

So many other commenters have given great advice. Listen to yourself, and choose whatever feels like freedom, not like fear.

I have a weird kind of busy day to navigate through but for now, here are two book recommendations that you might find helpful.

"The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships: Decoding Social Mysteries Through the Unique Perspectives of Autism" by Sean Barron and Temple Grandin.

[The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome by Tony Attwood.]
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0050IY61G/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb)

I know it might seem odd that I recommended Tony Attwood's book to you but there are a few chapters that you might find helpful.

I absolutely understand why you are nervous where all things female are concerned. I hope to spend some time writing up more things that you might find helpful and I'll PM those to you when I finish. I might not get done until Friday, but I will try my best to take the time and get that to you asap. :)

It's a late response, so I'm not going to include my story, but I'm in pretty much the same boat.

I'm reading 'The Emotional Incest Syndrome: When a Parent's Love Rules Your Life' very slowly because it hits pretty close to home and I end up ruminating if I read too much at one time.

I also have this one on my bookshelf (well, under the mattress) that I haven't started yet, 'Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners' so I can't vouch for it yet.

Hopefully, one, or both, of these might help you out.

Wow, lots of similarities!! As far as getting an "official" diagnosis, that's sort of the point we were at...it would've been a lot of money for not a lot of benefit. Honestly, it's been a while since I've looked at the books we have so, I can't remember which were most helpful (sorry) but, here's the ones that we do have:
book #1
book #2
book #3
book #4

If I do recall correctly I believe Book #3 Aspergers In Love by Maxine Aston was most helpful...but, I can't promise.

Also, if you didn't see it already, check out the link for the 5 Love Languages, we found that to be really helpful.

Edit...did the link formatting wrong!

Instead of commenting on my own experience, I just want to add a factoid I picked up recently. From the book "Triumphs of Experience", which is about a long-term longitudinal study of around 300 males from age 18 through death, it was found that there is a powerful correlation between "coping style" at age 30, and overall health and happiness at age 70.

Basically, if at age 30 you have a "coping style" where you retreat from the world and cut yourself off from people, this is correlated with being very unhappy at age 70. But if you have a coping style whereby you seek out connection in order to work through your problems, this is correlated with being quite happy and surrounded by friends and family at age 70.

The book is packed full of scientifically-validated facts like this about long-term happiness. Definitely recommended for other men; there are other studies like it about women.

http://www.amazon.com/Triumphs-Experience-Harvard-Grant-Study/dp/0674059824/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409675030&sr=8-1&keywords=triumphs+of+experience

Sounds like to me you are doing things right. One thing to always keep in mind is that you are the expert when it comes to your kid. Only you will know what's best. I know it is a lot at first, but you can definitely do this. Also I know you said you've already taken in a lot of info, but there is a book a highly recommend that I think you should check out. It helped me a lot when understanding everything myself. Here is a link on Amazon if you are interested. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1476776245/ref=sxts_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527130503&sr=1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65

I found this article and interview to be very interesting. Paul Raeburn has written books on many different science topics in the past. He became interested in the science of fatherhood and how important it is to a child's development. He said he was already "biased in favor of fathers already" but that even he was surprised to see just how important fathers are according to the science out there.

This article also contains an interview in another tab, so be sure to check that out too (though the interview is redundant in some places, still worth the read). Here is a link to his book. I will definitely be giving it a read.

I suggest Kimmel as a starting point. People tend to take him as being unbiased about feminism due to being a man (he even brings that up in one of his sociology texts).

The Gendered Society is pretty good as well. He's got a good talent for explaining why gender issues do not just affect women, and how they affect men as well. The Reader goes into some case studies about Men's Issues (Male Nurses, for example) as well as race and class issues.

Textbooks can be a bit pricey, but those are definitely worth it. If you are buy a University you might be able to pick up a 2000 copy on the cheap as well.

I'm 41 and only recently realized I may have it (still undiagnosed, but seeking.) I found The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome by Tony Attwood very helpful. Also anything by John Elder Robison. Relationship-wise, Journal of Best Practices by David Finch was good.

It's funny, Susan Blackmore's Meme Machine is among my favorite books. I think this view of Life is entirely consistent with the Objectivist perspective.

Rand defined Good and Bad in terms of what that means for individual life forms, not "life itself"-whatever that means. What that life form is is irrelevant. What is good for memes is often also good for humans, sometimes it is not. We are two separate life forms competing for/sharing the same resources. Just like what is good for you is sometimes good for me, and sometimes not. What is good for a virus might be good for me, but probably not.

The interests of competing organisms are often at odds, this does not disprove the objective nature of values, it only supports the claim.

Rand is saying that the nature of an organism determines it's values. What it is determines what it ought to do. To me this is a tautology. It seems ridiculous to even need to point that out. Apparently some philosophers think otherwise. Btw, I'll read your article after I cook dinner.

>To make this point fully clear, try to imagine an immortal, indestructible robot, an entity which moves and acts, but which cannot be affected by anything, which cannot be changed in any respect, which cannot be damaged, injured or destroyed. Such an entity would not be able to have any values; it would have nothing to gain or to lose; it could not regard anything as for or against it, as serving or threatening its welfare, as fulfilling or frustrating its interests. It could have no interests and no goals.

Ayn Rand

You have a wonderful attitude toward your daughter's diagnosis. I think you are thinking about the rights kinds of issues - especially with autistic girls, who tend to mask their autism - it's so important to be aware of keeping their self esteem intact through the school years. /r/aspergirls is a great resource.

Here is what my developmental ped told me about ABA when my daughter was diagnosed:

https://old.reddit.com/r/autism/comments/9tfdrl/my_3_year_old_was_diagnosed_today_and_the/

Here is a thread I recently posted about how you may encounter speech therapists or occupational therapists who use ABA techniques and how to avoid:

https://old.reddit.com/r/aspergers/comments/bhothm/to_all_parents_avoiding_aba_your_speech_therapist/

And the two books my developmental pediatrician recommended which might be up your alley:

The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing, Genius, and Autism

https://www.amazon.com/Spark-Mothers-Nurturing-Genius-Autism/dp/0812983564

Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism

https://www.amazon.com/Uniquely-Human-Different-Seeing-Autism/dp/1476776237/ref=sr_1_2?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpandstmE4gIVi-NkCh0yagCbEAAYAiAAEgLY4PD_BwE&hvadid=253907963486&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9030102&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t2&hvqmt=e&hvrand=1434658516908047116&hvtargid=kwd-422459949508&hydadcr=22538_9636739&keywords=book+uniquely+human&qid=1557069906&s=gateway&sr=8-2

There are 2 lines of thought on RAD: mainstream science and a splinter group, mostly parents of adoptive children, who have very extreme views on RAD. They tend to think that every problem an adoptive kid has is RAD, they tend to hold very high behavioral expectations that most kids couldn't meet, and they tend to support the use of fairly extreme punishment. (As it happens, they're mostly evangelical christians who tend to be rigid parents regardless and often choose adoption because they believe it is a moral imperative, without necessarily being really ready for the reality of it.) Anyways, they've written a lot of books like Parenting the Difficult Child: A Biblical Perspective on Reactive Attachment Disorder. YOu might want those books if you're investigating parenting styles, but otherwise probably not.

There aren't any "gold standard" kinds of books that everyone reads, but there are some good ones. I like Treating Attachment Disorders and Reactive Attachment Disorder: A Case-Based Approach. They're from 2014 and 2012, respectively, though, so you'll have to look at the literature to get the most up-to-date stuff.

From the way this first bit is framed, I wonder if you've ever studied or encountered any of the work that would fall under the aegis of "developmental systems theory". It seems like a lot of the ground you're trying to cover in terms of the distinction between genetic influences on evolution and epigenetic/cultural influences has been covered in great detail by developmental systems theorists from an anti-gene-centric perspective, and you should probably be engaging or at least acknowledging it. Susan Oyama's The Ontogeny of Information and Oyama/Griffiths/Gray's edited volume Cycles of Contingency are a couple of good texts to get acquainted with the DST approach and its (fairly far-reaching) philosophical implications.

Sort of unrelated, but if it turns out that your SS is on the autism spectrum, I highly recommend this book. I think it explains autism in a way that helps people understand it a lot better and offers some advice.

*Note: I'm not the parent of a child with autism. I'm in graduate school for speech-language pathology.

Is this the book? I'm in a unique position right now to have both time and the funds to afford books like this to read. My ambition is usually only bounded by my interest in the particular subject/research I'm reading (which in this case is nearly unbounded).

I'm still pretty new to the psychology/physiology/neuro subject areas so I could use all the sources of information I can find! I'd like to already know a bit about what I'm talking about when I apply for grad schools...

Thanks for the contest.

The item from my wish list that would change my life the most if I received it would be this book, the reason is because I am planning on going back to school after 7+ years. I am finally able to do this, I am going back for my RN. Because I haven't attended college for so long I was told I have to start back over. I was able to pick up this class (YAY will be knocking out 3 pre-reqs!) on Monday. So this book would be one of the helpful in changing my life around for the better.

If I remember correctly those things come under Theory of Mind, right, specifically mind-blindness? Simon Baron-Cohen (researcher on ASD) has published quite a few papers and books discussing ToM and how it affects autistic people, so that might be a useful read. Also, a really great book (if a little laborious and overkill for an everyday person who just knows someone autistic) that I definitely recommend is The Complete Guid to Asperger's Syndrome, which explains a great deal of things about the autism spectrum and how autistic people work. It's a bit much though, unless OP is really dead-set on knowing as much as possible.

> Luke feels that Old Ben lied to him, Old Ben admits to lying but also admits to doing it for the right reasons

This brings up something I forgot to mention too - many autistic people tend to think "in black and white" (and while it's on my mind, can be very literal (which links in to sarcasm of course), so metaphors like "in black and white" may result in a puzzled look from him). Remember when you were little and your parents told you lying is bad, you should always be honest and never tell lies to people? And then a few months down the line your mum asks your dad "does this dress make me look fat? Be honest" and he says "no, it looks great" even when it doesn't? This can result in a confusing situation (for most people, but more so for autistic folk), since apparently you're not allowed to tell lies, but he just lied to her. It can be difficult to get that, yes, lying IS bad, but sometimes we tell small lies to people to make them feel better, or to comfort them - we lie for the right reasons. Autistic people often have a very strict sense of justice too, which kinda links into that.

Yes.

The course covers a fairly wide swath of material, blending history, theory (of the critical variety), and empirical case studies. Its primary purpose is to introduce students to an examination of men and men's lives using the tools of sociology, and it does this through a few avenues:

1. History: We embark on something of a "masculinities throughout the ages" tour of men's lives. We look at everything from historical fashion trends (high-heels and silk stockings as the height of men's fashion in early modern Europe for example) to warfare, sex and sexuality, and the relationship between men and emotion.
   
   
2. Theory: This part of the course introduces students to the tools of the sociological trade. Students are introduced to the analytical and methodological instruments that we can use to examine men's lives. This is where we talk about "the basics" like intersectionality, bio-power and the body as a site of discipline, etc. We also talk a bit about the different sociological lenses that can be used to examine men and men's lives, from older functionalist approaches to more contemporary post-structuralist and feminist perspectives.
   
   
3. We attempt to disentangle the complex interactions between bodies and culture using concepts like Connell's "body-reflexive practices" and the "reproductive arena" (sorry, these sources are adequate, but the best ones are paywalled). This section is always challenging because the process of disentangling can have the effect of reproducing the very distinctions between body and practice that we're trying to trouble in the first place.
   
   
4. Case studies. Throughout the course, I draw on empirical studies that look at men and men's lives, in order to put the theoretical discussions we have into a more grounded social reality. We talk about things like men and violence, suicide, mental health, homelessness, men and emotion, men and education - both primary and later - and men and relationships - queer, gay and straight. We talk about the different understandings of masculinity that people have that are tied to race, class, and culture (what is a "real man" in white working class families vs. indigenous communities vs. white upper class families, etc.) The whole point of these case studies is to illustrate how the tools of sociology can give us solid, reliable data - both qualitative and quantitative - that can help us work towards understanding the challenges of masculinities in the 21st century.
   
   That's enough of a rant from me! I'll link some of the books I will be drawing on in my course below:
   
   If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer!
   
   Connell: Masculinities
   
   Connell: The Men and the Boys
   
   Kimmel and Messerschmidt: Men's Lives 9th edition - this one showcases dozens of authors, each of whom brings their own deep insights into contemporary masculinities.
   
   Kimmel and Holler: The Gendered Society
   
   Wade and Ferree: Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions

I was diagnosed with ASD on June 29th of this year. I felt exactly the same way. Was trying to figure out what next, and how I should feel about it. I think as of right now, I just accept it, it's how I have always been, and to me it feels "normal".

I did read an interesting book though, to help me understand the diagnoses:

The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Aspergers-Syndrome-ebook/dp/B0050IY61G

Ah you're raising Third Culture Kids. As a TCK/CCK myself...I highly encourage you to read the following:

http://www.tckworld.com/useem/art1.html (articles 1 - 5)

and the following book:

http://www.amazon.com/Third-Culture-Kids-Growing-Revised/dp/1857885252/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292266586&sr=8-1

Trust me on this one.

I really liked The Everything Guide to NPD just to give me an idea of what the whole thing was, plus books about emotional incest. That topic focuses a lot on boundary issues, which was a big problem in my family. The ones I've found useful are The Emotional Incest Syndrome and Silently Seduced. These three books were all recommended by my therapist, but if you have one, he or she could probably recommend others!

Agreed. And with situations in which one parent is abusive, it’s very normal for the other parent to over-bond and “enmesh”. I strongly recommend both group therapy for the three of you and individual therapy.

I also recommend this book. Don’t be put off by the title, there’s a lot of good stuff on enmeshment as a means of over-compensating for abuse.

The Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to do When a Parent's Love Rules Your Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/055335275X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_h9iZAbH55AYRZ
(In your case, substitute “child” for “parent” but also be aware of how your own baggage may contribute to the situation).

Either way, it sounds like you may need to spend some extra time focusing on your daughter, I’d just be sure that’s not seen as a reward for her bad behavior. She needs to learn that your boundaries, especially bodily boundaries, must be respected.

Darwin's Cathedral will interest you.

>Everything you have ever learned or thought is composed of memes

This is not correct. A meme is only a meme if it is transferable (or more pragmatically, gets transferred). If I have a thought that nobody has known before and tell nobody (or more aptly, if you cannot learn it from me), it is not a meme. For comparison, a random assortment of GCTA is not a gene. You might also enjoy The Meme Machine.

Happy to be of service.

TCK's are a relatively new phenomena. Many people, even those who work in related areas, don't even know they exist. It's hard, because we blend in so well that we're not even seen as different sometimes, even though we are.

The one piece of foundational literature that is out there is this book: http://www.amazon.com/Third-Culture-Kids-Growing-Revised/dp/1857885252

I highly recommend it to anyone who is a TCK or works with them in any capacity.

It's not about ADHD, but Uniquely Human is fantastic.

edit: clarification

This book may be of great assistance to your husband... The Emotional Incest Syndrome

lol Yeah that is what memes seem to be labeled as. I, again not trying to be a dick, read Meme Machine By Susan Blackmore before memes were a hit on the internet. So I think of a meme as a cultural "gene" that is spread through a given population. It could ber verbal or visual. There are so many memes!! It has been very interesting to see the use of the word over time!

This book pretty much described how I felt growing up and how that shaped me as a person. Therefore 3rdCultureKid, even though technically I'm an Adult TCK.

There is a word for that: “memes”.

Humans evolved to imitate the behavior of others, and to pass along useful information, which is how we build social units and communal behaviors. These word fads are probably part of that socialization impulse, usually harmless. The identification and study of memes is an area that some have explored. Here is a book that might be interesting., https://www.amazon.com/Meme-Machine-Popular-Science/dp/019286212X

As someone who was homeschooled, I know a few slightly awkward people. ;) It happens. But then, there are plenty of awkward publicly schooled kids too, so there's that.

As far as having enough time, I can't really speak to that, as I don't know what they'll be doing. Though if it's anything like we were schooled, at some point Mom would just give us a weekly plan, reading materials, and exercise problems, and we generally managed our own time (with consequences if we didn't). We just did it on our own. It taught me time management and study habits.

It's not a sure thing, but I wouldn't be worried about it. If you're close with the parents, a conversation might help.

I spent some time looking for a book my mom read for third-culture kid stuff (she was a youth leader for the MKs here for a while), and I think this might be it. In case you're looking for a non-novel format.

I highly recommend the book Uniquely Human.

Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study by George E. Vaillant

This doesn't have much info, but it mentions the twin studies and also a specific gene that might be linked (which I didn't know about).

This study says that, in their analysis of a twin registry in Sweden (which eliminates any influence of which twins volunteer for a study), same-sex sexual behavior seems to be about 34-39% genetic for men and 18-19% for women.

This one lists the results of several other studies over more than a decade, which found homosexuality to be 1) 37% genetic in boys and 82% in girls, 2) 70% for both, 3) 50% for men and 37% for women, 4) 50-60% for men and 30% for women, and 5) 0% for men and 49% for women. From their own study, they found a stronger link for men, though (at least in the free preview) it doesn't say how strong.

The majority of the research suggests that there is a moderate link, and that it's stronger for men, though obviously there's still some debate.

As for the medication part, I learned it from this book (which I don't have on hand or I'd look up their sources), but here are a couple other sources (the second one is a completely random website, but it's the full text of, coincidentally, the article I initially grabbed). It's a bit hard to search for most of the results are about gay people having higher rates of substance abuse, and the rest is mostly about the impact of pregnant women taking (or having recently taken) hormones (like the first link), which says more about the idea of it being influenced by hormonal conditions in utero than anything else. That 2nd link indicates a potential link to thyroid medication (which is also a hormone, but probably not one you'd think to associate with sexuality), antiemetics, and gamma globulin.

To me religions are an idea that has helped civilizations thrive through protection in numbers under the banner of that common idea(meme).
I cannot think of one society today that is not based on some sort of religious ethos and that has a remarkably strong way of banding people together and of even greater importance, the need to document ones idea.

Religion is one of the main influences and causes for art, music and language throughout our history and there is no denying its influence on us today no matter who you are.

I think there is a basic need for us to feel that there is a reason for us to belong to this super-organism that is the human race and religion is a very appealing idea to get behind, especially given the fact that they almost all offer passage to some sort of everlasting bliss and in most cases suffering or damnation to all non-believers. They also offer a social group that supports one another within the religious group that aids in their survival.

We have evolved enough now to develop these ideas into more complex ideals which has allowed the ideas or lack thereof behind atheism and other non-religions to flourish and to be documented for others to reference without fear of conviction for heresy. We now can oppose, study and/or question religious views without fear of persecution (although still not openly in some parts of the world). On the flip side this has also allowed mainstream religions to split into many variations of the same belief system some of them to the extreme.

I urge you to read The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore
http://www.amazon.com/The-Meme-Machine-Popular-Science/dp/019286212X/ref=pd_sim_b_1
or even the Lucifer Principle or The Global Brain by Howard Bloom are books that offer insights into this evolution of ideas.

The Emotional Incest book

Adult Children of Alcoholics (surprisingly relevant regardless of alcoholism)

Read this book on emotional incest, then run. I dated a man who had the same kind of unnatural obsession with his daughter. It made my skin crawl. A friend gave me this book. That cleared up for me exactly how toxic my BFs relationship was with his daughter. https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Incest-Syndrome-Parents-Rules/dp/055335275X

Do Not Listen to This; You Will Sound Ridiculous

The proper pronunciation is: "May-May"

Herd this was a good read: https://www.amazon.com/Meme-Machine-Popular-Science/dp/019286212X

​

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Aspergers-Syndrome-ebook/dp/B0050IY61G/ref=pd_sim_351_2/135-5364280-4375439?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0050IY61G&pd_rd_r=642e3d4f-77f7-11e9-b98b-a55320510026&pd_rd_w=yuYkL&pd_rd_wg=ASG01&pf_rd_p=90485860-83e9-4fd9-b838-b28a9b7fda30&pf_rd_r=DB05PAX76XCYWTFE4RJJ&psc=1&refRID=DB05PAX76XCYWTFE4RJJ

You are forgetting genes aren't the only replicator on this planet. In humans evolution isn't just about having kids anymore.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Science-Superstition-Developing-Supernatural/dp/0061452653

For more reading, try Karl Popper's Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. 1, and vol. 2.

Try Jacob Bronowski's Science and Human Values.

Also, try Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine. While this isn't strictly about fallibilism, it describes how memes are an example of the problem-solving method.

Not an entirely incorrect statement according to this book written over a decade ago. https://www.amazon.ca/Meme-Machine-Susan-Blackmore/dp/019286212X

http://www.amazon.com/The-Meme-Machine-Popular-Science/dp/019286212X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341405027&sr=1-1&keywords=memes

https://www.amazon.com/Meme-Machine-Popular-Science/dp/019286212X

Haaa ha sen dalga geç anca...

​

Bunları okuyup gelde, bi boyunun ölçüsünü alıyım meme lordu seni

• Blackmore, Susan. The Meme Machine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
  
• Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. 2nd ed. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989.
  
• Distin,Kate. The Selfish Meme. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
  
• Godin, Seth. Unleashing the Ideavirus. London, Simon & Schuster, 2000.
  
• Heylighen, Francis. “Memetics.” Principia Cybernetica Web. Ed. F. Heylighen, C. Joslyn & V. Turchin. Brussels: Principia Cybernetica. Nov 2001.
  
• Heylighen, Francis . “What makes a meme successful? Selection Criteria for Cultural Evolution.” Proc. 16th Int. Congress on Cybernetics. Namur: Association Internat. de Cybernétique. 1998.
  
• James, William. “Great Men and their Environment.” Atlantic Monthly. 46. 1880.
  
• Wilkins, John S. “What's in a Meme? Reflections From the Perspective of the History and Philosophy of Evolutionary Biology.” Journal of Memetics. 2,1, 1998.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetic_engineering
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics

Originally, the term meme was for concept of an idea being its own entity. For example "fire hurts" is probably one of the earliest viral ideas, or meme, in human history.

This book is quite an interesting read, also look for a book called The Selfish Gene.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/019286212X/



Edit: link to book added.