John Medina writes about babies & their brains in an easily accessible style, full of folksy anecdotes about his wife & sons. This makes it hard to talk smack about his book but I think I'm going to regardless.

I guess it's not his fault that most of the people who read this type of book & actually have children are so apt to be dismayed by the arbitrary ways they have failed their kids, but he certainly provides a lot of unsubstantiated ammunition. For example, near the beginning of More...

Medina is simple, direct, and interesting as an author. He does a nice job at splicing up research from a variety of fields and areas for the lay reader, such as myself. (Although, the academic in me would have liked the research better cited with a bibliography at the back of the book.)

It seemed to me that a lot of the research he refers to is not new and has been cited in Blink, Nurture Shock, Drive and other recent, popular, non-fiction books. Despite this, I didn't mind revisiting it in th More...

First, in full disclosure my kids helped out in the viral video for this book. You can check it out here:

http://brainrules.net/brain-rules-for...

That being said, I'm not getting anything besides a free book that I picked up on the set for writing this review. This is a well written, reader friendly parenting book that ever parent should own.

This is a book that I will be keeping and referring back to often. The author gives tons of practical tips throughout and then sums everything up at the end More...

One of the more overwhelming aspects of impending parenthood, I’ve discovered, is the infinite amount of advice people would like to give you. Searching for a book on pregnancy and parenting leads one to vast, candy-colored landscapes of literature, with each book insistently tugging in a different direction. It’s nearly impossible to separate fact from opinion, largely because most parenting "facts" boil down to opinions, anyway. This book caught my eye because it offers parenting advice within More...

Once others find out that you're having a baby, you can expect to be bombarded with the same question ad nauseum: "Are you excited?" Stupid question really (assuming you were trying to conceive in the first place). However, my standard, and most honest answer was "I'm excited to be excited" since there's really no immediate change and it certainly doesn't sink in right away.

As corny as it may sound, after reading this book my answer will now be "Yes, I am excited." The author does a wonderful jo More...

I do not have kids. But, I am a nanny of 2 boys under the age of 3, and I was feeling the pressure to do a wee bit of research on the best way of going about discipline, talking to them, feeding them their veggies, and controlling tantrums.

I'm usually not much of a non-fiction gobble-upper, but I was with this one. So fascinating! So easy to follow! So much of it just seems so...second nature? Obvious? But it isn't until we read the way he puts it, that it just clicks. I also adore reading non-f More...

By far the best book on parenting that I’ve read. Medina screens all of his content through a “grumpy scientist” filter, which means that if it hasn’t been proven, he doesn’t include it – or he notes that the information is still being studied. Therefore, I trust what this book has to say; it is not 276 pages of anecdotal advise based on personal experience or hearsay. More importantly, it squares with my understanding of how to raise children. The pleasant surprise for me is that the very hard More...

This book had a lot of useful information, quite a bit of which has been included in other books I've read but I still found it an interesting read.

Bullet point ideas/thoughts that are completely disjointed because that's all I have in me right now:

*Praise effort more than intelligence

*Think about how to best help friends with a new baby-it's too easy to become isolated, which when you combine with severe sleep deprivation and total exhaustion, is not healthy

*Talk talk talk to the baby

*Integrat More...

I haven't read the original Brain Rules book, but if it's anything like this one I think I will!

I read this out loud to Jun and it was very easy to read that way, which to me means a book that flows well. I really enjoyed reading this aloud.

The research in this book seems pretty sound, both because Medina is pretty stringent with research that he writes about, and because it's all stuff that I have read in various places and various studies around - especially in adoption and attachment arenas w More...

Just one of the numerous parenting books I've read - first since having our third. So, I consider myself an old hat at the parenting book game. I found this one refreshing and different, yet not overly original on the parenting front.

What makes this book different from the wall of parenting books at the library? This book takes an indepth scientific look at the brain. Medina is a brain scientist guy (neuroscientist?), so it makes sense.

This book delves deep into the nitty-gritty details of how b More...

Very interesting read. I didn't give it 5 stars, because, along with all baby books out there you have to take the information, process it, and decide it it will work for you or that you actually agree with it (all, some, or none).

The author presents scientific data about the baby's brain development and how that knowledge can be applied to bringing up a healthy and well-rounded child. He adds humor in all the science. There are plenty of (short) examples as well as research evidence he uses to More...

In his second “Brain Rules” book, John Medina purports to sift through mounds of cognitive neuroscience and social science research (“Ivory Tower”) and synthesize the data into an easily understandable recipe for producing smart, happy, and moral children (“Ivory Soap,” summarized in pages 260-75, if you’re short on time). For those of you who follow the whole parenting book game, “Brain Rules for Baby” is essentially “Nurture Shock” . . . on steroids. With engaging writing, explanations geared More...

This was a great book. I'm all about the science, so, information on parenting and child development backed by robust research? Yes, please.

There seems to be a divide among whether or not people thought this book provided practical information and real-life examples. I actually think it didn't -- or at least, it didn't have as many as I expected. The research findings are all clear, and there's tons of information on how brains work, but a lot of the advice was more general, probably because one More...

This was a good read. Essentially there is very little correlation between the standard IQ test and a person's sucess and happiness in life. Medina suggests other things that are actually linked to sucess. One of the biggest seems to be emotional IQ. I found his book to be very thoughtful but also practical. I love reading about research but I love it more when I know how to use it! My biggest takeaway is that people who can label their emotions are better at dealing with life and therefore happ More...

Worth reading both Brain Rules and Brain Rules for Baby. While Brain Rules takes a info only with no application approach, BR for Babies gets into the nitty gritty of application, with an appropriate amount of suggestion versus cold hard factually based information.(view spoiler)[
1. Pregnancy - Healthy Mom, healthy baby. healthy weight; proper nutrients; moderate exercise; low stress (stress=feeling a lack of control over bad things). Babies are isolated (and want to be left alone) the first half of pregnancy, (hide spoiler)] More...

My husband wanted us to find some well backed literature for recommendations to make sure that our growing parasite is the smartest parasite it can be. After scouring some reviews, I chose this and another book to read.

This is an EXCELLENT book. It is well sourced from primary literature, cites case studies and examples of how the methods work, and at the same time, isn't rigid in the methodology (i.e. You'll be terrible if you can't succeed) The author stresses that each child is different, an More...

Clear general guidance on raising a child, most of which seems obvious when you read it, but definitely is not obvious in practice. I think you can find a lot of this advice in other self-help books, but what's nice about Medina's work is that he doesn't peddle a wonder method like it was snake-oil. He's completely honest about what is known and unknown, what is fact and opinion, and what is standard theory and what is controversial.

What it lacks a little is practical advice. I was itching to tr More...

This book should be required reading for anyone who's expecting or has a child under age 5. Plain and simple, this is the best collection of parenting advice I can imagine, because it's completely research-based. You don't worry that it's just a bunch of tips from parents who had easy babies and so anything happened to work, because Medina's a brain scientist, not just some parent. He's also a brain scientist who actually uses what he knows about the brain to make the book interesting and easy t More...

I consume parenting books like they are M&M's. I am definitely reaching the point of overload, but I thought I would check out this one based on a recommendation. I loved it. It takes all the great research out there and puts it all in one place. I could have saved myself a lot of time by just reading this one book.

The only place where I think I might question the author, based on the deluge of other parenting books I've read, is about praise. At one point in the book he talks about how to o More...

Medina writes as though on a quest for the universal theorem for instilling success: empathy. He cites work from several great authors (Haidt, Brosnan, Lehrer) and includes many personal experiences. If you are suffering from parenting book fatigue, I would choose this book over Nurture Shock, simply because of the breadth of information it covers. Medina went into much more detail and focused on the younger age group.

Written for the layperson and covering much of which I hope most parents are a More...

I was given this book by someone who really likes it. I liked it, but I didn't think it was amazing.

There was a lot of information in this book and it was presented in an interesting/readable way, but there were a couple things that kept me from really liking it.

First, I don't feel like doing everything possible to make my kid smart is a great goal, so I went into the book skeptical in general. If I had read the subtitle before the book, I would have known there was more to it - but I didn't.

Sec More...

If you think this book is only for those who have a baby in their hands - think again.

This book is perfect for anyone fascinated by psychology, neurobiology and human development. Not only will you gain insights into how the human mind develops during the early years, you will also come to better understand both yourself and the people around you. Why are you the way you are? Why are some of your friends outgoing and popular, while others are timid and awkward? In addition to genetics, could it More...

I definitely think that every parent should read the section on relationships. I think most couples are unprepared for what a baby does to a relationship in those first years. It’s not all gazing at your baby and husband with pure joy on your face and in your heart.

I think this section about relationships should be required reading. I’ve asked Jason to read it at this late date because I think there are some useful tools for us. And we need it since according to Medina, “More than 80% of couple More...

A good read, though somewhat repetitive after reading NurtureShock. (A fault of my reading order, though, not the book's.) For parents, there are some solid takeaways here about mental and emotional development, lying, praise, morality, and discipline. Medina also devotes chapters to pregnancy and healthy marriages post-baby. Each chapter concludes with a concise summary of points and advice, and the end of the book compiles these with more detail -- something NutureShock could have benefited fr More...

Since I already have a toddler, I no longer have time for real reviews, so all I can really say to this is that I enjoyed reading it (in bits and pieces over an extended period). The research and science angles were light enough to be interesting but serious enough to be credible. And it says something about his general writing style that although he strongly recommended things that we are not (and will not be) doing, I didn't get defensive enough to stop reading or to blow off other suggestions More...

Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five is a parenting book that gives the parent insight into research that has been done by neuroscientists on the developing brains of children. It is less of a "You must do X..." book and instead focuses on what's happening in the brain and what research has shown to be best practices to be for producing a smart and happy child, from pregnancy to age 5.

I got this book from my Parent Education/Mommy & Me program and was More...

This is one of the best parenting books I've read and I'd recommend it to expecting parents out there. John Medina's style is engaging and easy to read, and I like that any grand statements he makes are generally supported by scientific facts.
But, I can't give it more than 3 stars because of the nature of the book. These types of books, whilst filled with helpful ideas and tid-bits, are a minefield for parental guilt and regret.
The book purports to set out the best way to raise a smart and hap More...

Fascinating look at the research surrounding babies' brain development. The author discusses practical things parents can do to raise smart children, happy children, and moral children. I strongly recommend this to any expectant parent or parent of young children. Unfortunately, despite claiming to be a"gumpy scientist" who only accepts studies that have been rigorously peer-reviewed and replicated, the author frequently explains in terms of fantastical evolutionary imaginations. For instance, t More...

I was 20 when I gave birth to my son. How I wish this book (and the research it is based upon) had existed then. I cared for my son as best I could, but I was ignorant in so many ways.

But, being a grandma is giving me a second chance to be a better caregiver. I learned something on virtually every page.

Face time not screen time, providing a structured and safe, but not stifling play environment and being empathetic to teach and encourage empathy are the stand-out lessons that I'm already implem More...

I really enjoyed this book for the technical information presented in a conversational tone, the references and sources offered as needed, the related website, and the take-away messages offered at the end of each chapter. I wasn't looking for someone to tell me how to parent, but instead to offer evidence-based approaches to parenting that I could consider as needed. My husband and I have been experimenting with using several of the ideas/approaches/tools offered in the book and have seen posit More...