How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes

As featured in The Guardian, How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes is a clear, actionable, sometimes humorous (but always science-based) guide for parents on how to shape their kids into honest, kind, generous, confident, independent, and resilient people . . . who just might save the world one day.As an award-winning science journalist, Melinda Wenner Moyer was regularly asked to investigate and address all kinds of parenting questions: how to potty train, when and whether to get vaccines, and how to help kids sleep through the night. But as Melinda's children grew, she found that one huge area was ignored in the realm of parenting advice: how do we make sure our kids don't grow up to be assholes?On social media, in the news, and from the highest levels of government, kids are increasingly getting the message that being selfish, obnoxious and cruel is okay. Hate crimes among children and teens are rising, while compassion among teens has been dropping. We know, of course, that young people have the capacity for great empathy, resilience, and action, and we all want to bring up kids who will help build a better tomorrow. But how do we actually do this? How do we raise children who are kind, considerate, and ethical inside and outside the home, who will grow into adults committed to making the world a better place?How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes is a deeply researched, evidence-based primer that provides a fresh, often surprising perspective on parenting issues, from toddlerhood through the teenage years. First, Melinda outlines the traits we want our children to possess - including honesty, generosity, and antiracism - and then she provides scientifically-based strategies that will help parents instill those characteristics in their kids. Learn how to raise the kind of kids you actually want to hang out with-and who just might save the world.

Crucial, timely, and wise. This is the parenting handbook for raising the next generation., It's one thing to say you don't want your kid to be an asshole. This book gives you data-driven, research-based tools to actually achieve it., Moyer, a science journalist and parenting columnist, decided to go through the research and ended up writing a book with the pleasing title How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes. In the vast realm of parenting advice, there was plenty on diet, sleep and how to turn your child into a superhuman genius, but not a great deal on how to create a kind, compassionate person [...] Moyer's book highlights an uncomfortable truth: that we may have to confront our own asshole-ish tendencies - selfishness, unconscious biases, internalised misogyny, an inability or unwillingness to understand other people's perspectives - before we can expect the same from our children.

Melinda Wenner Moyer is an award-winning contributing editor at Scientific American, widely read parenting columnist at Slate, and contributor to the New York Times' new standalone parenting section. How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes is her first book.