In this episode of The Lab, Daddy Clay welcomes special guest Po Bronson. Po is one of the authors of the great new parenting book, NurtureShock. In this interview segment, he shares his thoughts on subjects featured in the book including, the science of praise, how to teach kids about race, conflict resolution, and discipline. NurtureShock is one of the best books on the subject of parenting and is a great read for moms and dads. DadLabs Ep. 574 is brought to you by BabyBjorn.

Daddy Clay: Hey there, welcome back to The Lab. I'm Daddy Clay. Today we've got a very special episode coming to you from the Texas Book Festival here at the State Capitol in Austin, Texas. We're joined by NurtureShock author Po Bronson. Come on back, you're gonna want to hear what he has to say.

Daddy Clay: Po, thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thank you for talking to us. And thank you for this book. But I got some questions for you.

Po Bronson: Go, shoot away.

Daddy Clay: So this book's got 10 chapters, each one on a different important issue that pertains to parenting. So as you're doing your research, do you come across one or two that caused you to make a change in what you were doing at home right away?

Po Bronson: Yeah, the science of praise, which I uncovered when my son was 5 years old, my daughter would be 2, so less relevant at the time for my two year old. But my son right then, I was telling him every day. He was trying to learn to read, trying to do math, I was telling him, "You're so smart. You've got what it takes. You have it in you." And the science says, telling kids they're smart all the time teaches them this idea that it's about whether you've got it or you don't. That you're innately born smart. And then it doesn't tell them what to do when they encounter difficulty. I immediately overnight started telling my kid, "If you could work hard, focus on the details, focus on the specific." And praise him still but praise him quite differently. And that changed overnight. The other thing that changed overnight when I started reading it was about talking about race. And teaching children tolerance from a very early age. And when I read this work, a lot of it came out of here, University of Texas at Austin, it suggests preach tolerance, talk about race and skin color in a very open way. Don't make it a taboo topic, and this is really beneficial to kids from a very early age.

Daddy Clay: One of the things about the book that's really challenging is that throughout the book, you're taking on sort of sacred cows, assumptions, a lot of things that we all sort of collectively believe to be true but are misinformed. And it sort of leads me to believe is it possible to parent just using common sense and good intentions? Or is is possible to parent in the absence of social science?

Po Bronson: We would hope people would get informed and then trust their instincts. Because if they're just trusting their instincts, what they think of as their instincts, are in fact a lot of actually old disproven psychology. Or at times we have moralistic bias that we bring to kids. Things that we think of we quickly judge them as bad behavior and we're not really seeing the complexity of what's going on.

Daddy Clay: This is not going to be a comfortable read for parents. Your book.

Po Bronson: It's a fun read. We think of it sort of like the freakanomics of parenting, especially for dads, who don't want every little thing, they want to hear some science. They want to know that these things are true. That they don't just sound true. They want to see some data.

Daddy Clay: So what you have you found? So we've seen lots of statistics that indicate that men are participating lots more in raising kids. They're there, day to day. They're taking on tasks they haven't in the past. Are you seeing any information that's specific to dads?

Po Bronson: No, I think the helicopter parent thing, people have to watch out. There's always some example, that's out there in the newspaper, that's really easy to say, some dad or mom who's way overdoing it right? But the vast majority of parents are just normal, involved parents and every bit of science, every bit, says that's good for kids. There's a couple of touch spots with sort of the modern, progressive dad to watch out for. One has to do with when you're co-parenting and you're sharing, you get into a lot of arguments actually over parenting itself.

Daddy Clay: Woah, woah, woah, arguing?

Po Bronson: Okay, but there's higher rates of marital conflict in co-parenting families. This has been measure. So when you're having conflict, work it out in front of the kids, so the kids can see good negotiation and compromise. The other thing that's the one other negative trait that goes with being a modern, progressive dad is inconsistency of discipline. Modern, progressive dads - one day it'll be like I'll try being strict, the next day, I'll make sure I'm never giving, I'll ignore them when they're being anti-social or trying to manipulate me because I want to not reinforce their negative behavior. But the science of discipline says consistency is what actually matters the most. And so our attempts to experiment in discipline actually backfire a little bit.

Daddy Clay: It's really interesting stuff. And the book is just full of that. So thanks again for joining us.

Po Bronson: Hey thanks Clay. I appreciate it.

Daddy Clay: You've got to check out "NurtureShock" by Po Bronson. This needs to go on the shelf with Tina Cassidy's "Birth" and "DadLabs Guide to Fatherhood". These are the essential books you've got to have. I want to thank Po very much for joining us and thank you BabyBjorn for sponsoring this show. We couldn't do it without them. We'll see you next time on The Lab.