Melinda Wenner Moyer: How To Raise Kids Who Aren't A**holes

Thoughts on Record: Podcast of the Ottawa Institute of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

In many contexts - both in-person and online - it can often feel like reasonable behaviour, the ability to constructively disagree, and basic kindness are in short supply. Award-winning science journalist and author, Melissa Wenner Moyer, joins us to discuss some of the themes in her new book How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes. In this discussion we cover:

• a consideration of the evidence that parenting is failing children and creating an increase in bad behaviour
• features of the current environment that could be selecting for/promoting bad behaviour among children
• Melinda's reflection on what has changed the most for children growing up in the 70s or 80s vs those who have been raised in the last 10 to 15 years
• the critical link between generosity and success
• impulse control & emotion vs. self-esteem as the primary driver of a child's sense of self-worth and contentedness
• the key role of bearing responsibility and managing adversity (in reasonable doses) in creating tolerable adults
• the value of providing children with frank, direct feedback while remaining attuned to the overall attachment with your child
• how to talk about lying with children and to work through contradictions that children may notice in their parent's behaviour around lying on a near-daily basis
• Melinda's thoughts and words of encouragement for parents who are worried that they are not living up to their ideal as parents

Melinda Wenner Moyer is a contributing editor at Scientific Americanmagazine and a regular contributor to The New York Times, Washington Post, and other national magazines and newspapers. She is a faculty member in the Science, Health & Environmental Reporting program at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Her first book, How To Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes, was published in July 2021 by J.P. Putnam’s Sons. Melinda was the recipient of the 2019 Bricker Award for Science Writing in Medicine, and her work was featured in the 2020 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology. She was also awarded a 2018 Alicia Patterson Foundation fellowship. Moyer’s work has won first place prizes in the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism, the Folio Eddie Awards and the Annual Writing Awards of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. It has also been shortlisted for a James Beard Journalism Award, a National Academy of Sciences Communication Award and a National Magazine Award. She has a master’s in Science, Health & Environmental Reporting from NYU and a background in cell and molecular biology. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her husband, two children, and her dog.

https://www.melindawennermoyer.com
Melindawmoyer.substack.com