Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning [Paperback]

Deborah Stipek Ph.D. (Author), Kathy Seal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 18, 2001

A practical guide to ensuring your child's success in school.

What makes children succeed in school? For the past twenty years, the focus has been on building children's self-esteem to help them achieve more in the classoom. But positive reinforcement hasn't necessarily resulted in measureable academic improvement. Through extensive research, combined with ongoing classroom implementation of their ideas, Deborah Stipek, Dean of the School of Education at Stanford, and Kathy Seal have created a program that will encourage motivation and a love of learning in children from toddlerhood through elementary school.

Stipek and Seal maintain that parents and teachers can build a solid foundation for learning by helping children to develop the key elements of success: competency, autonomy, curiosity, and critical relationships. The authors offer both practical advice on understanding different learning styles and down-to-earth tips about how to manage difficult issues -- competition, grades, praise, bribes, and rewards -- that inevitably arise for parents and teachers.

Most important, Stipek and Seal help parents create an enriching environment for their children at home that will mesh with the school experience and become a positive, effective climate for learning.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

How do parents instill a lifelong love of learning in their children? Stipek, dean of the School of Education at Stanford, and Seal, a journalist and author, answer this question with well-documented studies, including research from UCLA's Corrine A. Seeds University Elementary School, a laboratory school for educational improvement where Stipek has served as director for 10 years and Seal as co-president of the parent-teacher's association for two years. Believing that "play is children's work" because it engages their interest in the world around them, Stipek and Seal encourage parents to develop their children's natural drive to learn by focusing on what they believe are the three primary components of success: competence, autonomy and relatedness (the unconditional acceptance, connection and support parents provide their children). Combining famous and fictional anecdotes and other special tips (the proper use of rewards, the role of self-esteem) with the results of current research studies, the authors provide an informative account of the broader concepts they believe are important for parents to understand so that they can create a culture of learning at home. An appendix supplies suggestions on how to assess a school and when to enroll a child in kindergarten. Despite the many studies cited, parents will find the book to be friendly and engaging, a useful resource that they can consult over the many years of their children's education. Agent, Heide Lange.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Though these parenting aids both emphasize nurture over nature, they have different focuses. Conkling, a freelance writer specializing in health and alternative medicine, believes that experience and environment can change and improve children's intelligence and, furthermore, that early stimulation can alter the size, structure, and chemistry of a child's brain ("In fact, 70 percent of your child's brain development will be complete by the time she blows out her first birthday candle," she writes in the introduction). Using research of the past 20 years, she argues that even a genius would not achieve her potential without the proper stimulation. Included are tips on assuring that maximum neural development can take place in the womb, talking to your baby and appreciating her special gifts, encouraging artistic expression and speech development, and making good food choices. Stipek, dean of the School of Education at Stanford University, and Seal, a freelance psychology and education journalist, believe that most children are born with the desire to learn but that this desire starts to decline at about middle school. Rather than focusing solely on boosting self-esteem (which she says can "do damage"), she advises parents to foster competence, autonomy, and relationship security in children. One of her most useful bits of advice is how to connect book learning to the real world. She also rightly points out that if children worry that making a mistake will make them look bad, they will avoid challenge. Caretakers, she says, should help children understand that they can feel and even get to be smarter by doing their work. Public library patrons will find both of these books helpful and approachable. Annete V. Janes, Hamilton P.L., MA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 230 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks; 1st edition (April 18, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805063951
• ISBN-13: 978-0805063950
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #79,568 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars SUPER REFERENCE FOR PARENTS April 6, 2001

By Patricia Nicholson

Format:Paperback

This book answers a lot of questions I've had about parenting. It has good sections on how and when to use rewards, when and how to praise your kids, when you should tell them "Do this now!" and when you should let go. I especially liked a chapter on intelligence where they explain why it's better to emphasize that intelligence isn't a fixed quality. I had never thought about this before but found that it is useful for keeping your kids encouraged in school.

I found that I already do some of the things this book recommends - like reading to my children -- but that they also suggested interesting ways to "stop nagging" my kids yet still have them do their homework, ways to help them do well on standardized tests yet face them calmly, and ways to ensure their self-esteem. One thing I found especially useful was two chapters on choosing schools. They give very specific instructions on how to judge a preschool and what to look for when you visit elementary schools. It gave me a list of questions to ask take when I looked at a preschool for my son recently, so I feel now that I can make decisions based on research and not just instinct.

The best thing about this book is that is a good read. There are lots of examples and suggestions for what to do and what to say, even a quiz to give yourself. This is a book I would definitely give at baby showers, because it's a guide you can refer to from babyhood onward.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great tips for all ages September 5, 2003

By "rosey64"

Format:Paperback

This is an all ages book on how children learn and how parents can help them -- what to do and not do. Let me quote: "Although this book focuses on children from babyhood through elementary school, its general principles and recommendations apply to children of all ages, and even to adults. Everyone can follow the self-motivation model you will read about in upcoming chapters: the cycle of working hard, persisting to overcome obstacles, and being energized to do more by the feelings of pleasure brought by newly gained confidence." It's based on the latest research. This book opened my eyes to the inadequacy of my own education: I worked for grades, not to learn. I made great grades, but what did I learn? Not much. Even now, I have bad "learning" skills. My curiosity has been quashed by the desire to perform and get the job done. This book also covers choosing schools, toys, "getting smart" instead of "being smart," the harmfulness of grades and competition. Also included is what to say and not say to your child. This book will stay on my shelf for years!

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Stellar May 10, 2002

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

This book is, without question, the best book available for anyone who is a parent (or intends to eventually become a parent) and wants to preserve or increase their children's intrinsic motivation to learn. If you want children to WANT to learn, to learn WELL, to ENJOY learning, and to CONTINUE learning even after their schooling has ended, there is no finer book than this one. It also will be a fantastic contribution for any person who teaches or intends to eventually teach. I recommend this without question!!

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Motivated Minds April 4, 2001

By Emily Simon

Format:Paperback

This book should be required reading for all parents. Carefully researched, this book lets you know how a child can learn to love learning and how a parent can help that process. The book is written in a beautiful flowing style so there is not a minute of boredom. Research facts and stories intertwine to demonstrate exactly what children need to succeed.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Credible, useful and practical advice for parents! November 14, 2008

By Gayathri Tirthapura

Format:Paperback

While it is true that the schools play a central role in developing the love of learning in children, the role of the parents is crucial too. It is true that parents cannot spend the same amount of time as teachers in helping their children learn. But there are some very simple non-time-consuming strategies that the parents can use with their children which will help to increase their children's motivation to learn better at their schools. Making parents' aware of such strategies is the focus of this book, "Motivated Minds - Raising Children to Love Learning". Deborah Stipek, one of the authors of this book is the dean of the School of Education at Stanford. The co-author is Kathy Seak who is a journalist and has written about education and psychology for many years. The authors offer a lot of practical wisdom which most importantly are also proven by research. While everything they have to offer in this book has been proven by research, the book is by no means a boring list of evidence from research which the parents have to plough through to find what they need. It is filled with many interesting examples and anecdotes from their own life about situations which commonly occur with children and how parents can overcome them.
I enjoyed reading the book thoroughly. I myself had developed many strategies in the past few years to deal with situations where my daughter was at the risk of losing interest in a certain activity if appropriate action was not taken. This book helped me confirm some of my strategies and went a step further in helping me learn more of them.
For example, the book talks about how "nothing motivates children more than competence". I have seen this happen with my daughter many times.... When she takes up a new type of activity which is hard to learn, she sometimes gives up after a few tries and is afraid to go back and try the same fearing that she will not be able master it. For example, this used to happen often when she tried to play a new song in violin which was above her current skill level. Each of those times I have had to walk a fine line of not being pushy yet convincing her to practice enough to be able to play the song and develop a healthy attitude of perseverance. Each time, when she was able to play the song after some practice, she has derived motivation to play the violin even more due to her successes and her competence in the skills needed. The parents' role in helping children develop this persistence is crucial I feel, and this book talks about that. This book goes one step further and says that not only does competence motivate children to learn something but "feeling competent is as important as competence itself". For, a child may be very good at doing something but may not feel confident about it. Feeling confident about being able to do something is of extreme importance because the child may otherwise not try on his/her own to learn tougher skills in that area, otherwise. This book gives strategies to overcome such obstacles to learning.

The above is just one example of how this book helped me clarify the effective strategies in some of the situations that I face regularly with my daughter. There are many more such strategies in this book which apply to parents of children of any age. In short, you now never have to feel at a loss when you are not sure how to overcome the obstacles to your child being motivated to learn either at school or at an after-school activity. With this book, you will have a very credible, useful and practical resource to refer to for effective strategies and apply it to the situation you may be facing. Read more ›