Beyond Intelligence: Secrets for Raising Happily Productive Kids
House of Anansi
Paperback | 312 Pages
ISBN: 978-1-77089-477-8
CAD $19.95
Now available across Canada in fine bookstores and retail outlets, as well as online (August 2014 in USA)
Buy Beyond Intelligence
Beyond Intelligence is a parents’ guide to raising intelligent and happily productive kids. It’s a book about helping children become the strongest, most confident, happiest, and most successful people they can be.
In a fast-paced world, it is more important than ever that parents understand the coping skills their children will need for resiliency and success across the lifespan.
Using current research findings, we have written what reviewers are describing as a reader-friendly parenting companion that helps parents nurture their children’s abilities at every stage of development–from diapers to diplomas.
While the tone of the book is conversational, we have incorporated concepts from our own research and professional practice, and from our contemporaries’ findings in cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, and educational psychology. We want all parents to have the tools they need to raise smarter, happier, and more successful kids.
In Beyond Intelligence, we show parents how to help their children discover what they’re interested in, and develop those interests into skills they can carry through their lifetimes.
The emphasis of the book is on solid time-tested habits, attitudes, and behaviours that help children become stronger and happier adults: hard work, persistence, patience, respect, and imagination.
“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”
We discuss the nature of intelligence, including controversies about its meaning, and the implications of current research that suggest intelligence isn’t fixed at birth, but is instead dynamic and plastic, depending on a person’s opportunities to learn and interactions with the world.
QUOTES FROM BEYOND INTELLIGENCE
“Based on what is being learned now about brain development, there is good evidence that most people have a lot more capability than is ever developed.”
“There may be no greater support or encouragement we can give our children than the tools and attitudes they need to decide for creativity.”
An important principle of Beyond Intelligence: Secrets of Raising Happily Productive Kids is that intelligence is not innate and fixed, but rather develops over time, in an environment of love, respect, and challenge.
We challenge the viewpoint that an early IQ test predicts ability later in life. While we acknowledge that early success may be a sign that a child is on the right track, or in the right learning environment, we show that all children have unbounded potential for achievement.
In Beyond Intelligence: Secrets of Raising Happily Productive Kids, we show how parents can support their children by:
Nurturing their intellectual development
Identifying and encouraging their abilities
Fostering their creativity
Bolstering effort, persistence, self-regulation, and motivation
Working collaboratively with teachers, schools, and other parents
Preventing or alleviating social, emotional, and other possible problems
And ensuring their children have the best possible learning opportunities at home, school, and beyond.
Praise for Beyond Intelligence: Secrets for Raising Happily Productive Kids
“A wonderful, insightful, informed, and practical guide for today’s parents. Your children will thank you!”
“Dona Matthews and Joanne Foster present parents with an evidence-based sweet spot between tiger mom and creative laissez-faire. Find advice on how to raise a child who is both disciplined and flexible, both wisely compliant and confident in one’s own path.”
“Beyond Intelligence is a refreshing and much-needed update on intelligence and its development.”
“[Matthews and Foster] challenge us to be more attentive to our children and more reflective about the declarations and gifts each child brings forward. Practical strategies and tools are outlined and examples are narrated in the context of a thought-provoking investigation into what ‘education’ really means.”
“What a terrific guide for parents seeking to help their daughters and sons make the most of their potential! …. I applaud the authors for unpacking and liberating the concept of ‘intelligence,’ how to cultivate it… and how to transcend what are too often viewed as its constraints.”
“If you only have time to read one book on parenting, make this the book….Beyond Intelligence is itself a highly intelligent guide to parenting.”
“Beyond Intelligence is a must-read book for parents, educators and professionals. Matthews and Foster provide an erudite yet personal and compassionate perspective on how to promote children’s intelligence and help them overcome obstacles in order to be more resilient and successful in life. If you want to help children be smart AND happy, read this book!”
“Beyond Intelligence is laced with common-sense (and occasionally counter-intuitive) implications for parental practice, in which the need to deeply listen to, and understand, the child takes precedence over quick-fix commercial products or educational quackery. This book offers a refreshing alternative, and I recommend it unreservedly.”
“By far the best book I have read on child development…It deserves to be a national best seller and it is a ‘must read’ for educators and parents.”
“Beyond Intelligence is the definitive almanac to help parents navigate and understand how to identify and nurture optimal learning for one’s child…. [It is] also a resource that can be referred back to time and time again as a parent interfaces with the joys and challenges encountered when raising a child to be successful.”
“Readers will benefit from the manner in which Matthews and Foster accurately address all of the current issues that modern parents face and do so in a logical and easy-to-read manner. The summaries at the end of each chapter make this book into much more than a one-time read, but a resource that can be returned to over throughout a persons “parenting” life.”
“Beyond Intelligence is a wise and balanced approach to optimizing children’s intelligence based on the latest research on learning, development, and neuroscience, and complemented by the authors’ extensive experience. It honours the complex ways in which children develop, giving practical recommendations for sensitive guidance at each stage of development. The book is a treasure trove for parents and teachers alike.”
“Thank goodness Dona and Joanne have written another book! By sharing personal stories, research, and practical strategies, Drs. Matthews and Foster have created a handbook that should sit on every parent’s shelf. As an elementary school principal and a parent, I applaud the authors’ nuanced approach to the discussion around intelligence and its implications for children, parents, and schools.”
“Beyond Intelligence carries a beautiful message—our kids all have unique abilities and challenges. Take the essence of each individual child and run with it to achieve the best possible result. With the expertise of these highly qualified writers, each personality trait deserves enriching, and each perceived problem has a thoughtful, hands-on, and concrete solution.”
Release Date
Beyond Intelligence: Secrets of Raising Happily Productive Kids published by House of Anansi Press. Now available across Canada in fine bookstores and retail outlets and online (available in the US in August 2014)
More Info
To receive publishing information on Beyond Intelligence as it becomes available, send a message to Dona Matthews or Joanne Foster
