Headstarts – 100 tips for raising clever, confident, creative kids is a new book on child-raising written by Dr Cindy Pan and Vanessa Woods.

Published by Allen and Unwin, it was released 30 May 2011. For details, or to purchase copies, please click here.

Each year there are thousands of studies published about children. It’s one of the best-funded, most influential fields of psychology because most people believe, like Whitney Houston once sang, that children are our future.
However, those studies are published in journals that can cost thousands of dollars a year to subscribe to. Occasionally a really big study will make it into the mainstream media, but then you’re relying on journalistic spin to decipher it. And then there are all those other studies that get buried in obscure journals that libraries keep in their basements.
We know that today’s parents have a million things to do between breakfast and bedtime. We know that you want the facts and so we’re bringing them to you, free of both scientific jargon and tabloid fear-mongering.
All the studies drawn on on this book have been published recently. Things change, ideas evolve, and some of what might have been commonly accepted in your parents’ day (like the theory that sugar makes kids hyper or that Mozart makes them smarter) has been debunked in the new millennium. Most likely some of these studies will be debunked in the next few decades, but we’ve aimed to give you what’s likely to have some longevity. In the interest of readability, we’ve dropped a lot of the cans, mights, probablys and possiblys that scientists love using. Hardly anything in science is concrete, and most of it is debatable, including many of the things we report here. But even so, these studies have all been published in well-respected, peer-reviewed journals, so you’re getting the best of what’s out there.
We know that school is becoming more competitive, and you no doubt want your kids to do well. So many of our tips are geared towards giving your kids that little edge in school to get them ahead. But we also know you want your kids to make it to their eighteenth birthday, and to be happy and healthy when they do, so we’ve also included the latest findings on safety, emotional intelligence and nutrition.
Most of all, we want you to know that you’re a great parent and you’re doing a fabulous job. These little headstarts are supposed to be like washing machines and vacuum cleaners were to previous generations of parents – making your life easier so you can concentrate on having more fun with your kids.
Love,
Cindy and Vanessa

For more information, please visit http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781741755749