Nurtureshock: New Thinking About Children, which takes a hard look at the conventional wisdom about children, sets it against the latest science, and concludes that many norms about childrearing are likely to cause more harm than good.

•Praising kids undermines their confidence. Tell a child that she brilliant without qualification and she’ll likely tuck away the point that you don’t think much of her and are subtly telling her that she’s not even, on pace, or above average. How does this bit of mental gymnastics operate? No one is quite sure, but the point is this: “Giving kids the label of ‘smart’ does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it.”

•If you don’t force kids to exercise, many of them will turn into little Augustus Gloops. It’s not strictly television’s fault, for if you turn off the tube but don’t march the little darlings outside for a healthy dose of physicality, they’ll trade TV for some other form of sedentary behavior—video games, Internet surfing, even reading. Kids don’t need to sit around more, it appears, but they need to sleep more, and the lack of sleep—one consequence of the overscheduling and overplanning of Buddy and Sis’s little lives—is causing bodies to fail and insulin levels to skyrocket.

•“Children learn to lie much earlier than we presumed.” Four-year-olds are already quite good at confabulating, “while a six-year-old will lie about once every hour.” Throw sibling rivalry into the mix, and the lies become even worse. So, too, does the fighting, which can make Lord of the Flies look like a fairy tale.

•Educational TV and Conflict A strong relationship exists between the amount of educational TV a preschooler watches and how mean they are to their playmates. Turns out those “safe” kids’ shows spend a lot of time showing the build-up of conflict or disagreement between characters, and comparatively little on the resolution.

And — and this is priceless — many are aimed at kids who are too little to relate the start of the show, when characters are mean to each other, to the end, when they kiss and make up. So mostly they just come away better schooled in relational cruelty. Or, as Bronson and Merryman found that Arthur is more dangerous for children than Power Rangers.”.