How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes: Science-Based Strategies for Better Parenting, from Tots to Teens

"This book is by a science journalist, Melinda Wenner Moyer. I chose it because it’s engaging and relatable but also very helpful. Moyer asks what we should do in a society which regularly encourages children to be, as she puts it, assholes, whether through what they see on TikTok or YouTube, or what they see powerful politicians getting away with. She argues that parents need to work proactively to cultivate qualities like kindness and empathy. It’s broader than the two previous books. She talks about anti-racism and anti-sexism but she also addresses how to raise children who aren’t bullies, for example. She says makes the point that almost everything written on this focuses on what to do if your child is bullied, or how to avoid that happening, but there are plenty of children out there who are doing the bullying, so maybe we should be focusing on how to avoid our children being the bully, as well. The book includes a mixture of psychological reasoning and very specific strategies, often grounded in parenting psychology, about the specific things that parents can do. Again, this comes back to the theme which we saw in Brighouse and Swift: the importance of the parent/child relationship and particularly the need for what psychologists would call an authoritative rather than authoritarian parent/child relationship. I agree. In fact, I have an anecdote about it in my book. A few years back, when I’d drafted a paper on why we should be raising our children to be good global citizens, one of my colleagues said to me, ‘Oh, you can tell your children are really young.’ Because his were teenagers, he knew there’s a limit to how much we can actually shape our children’s values. And of course, I see that more as my children get older. Recognizing the other influences on our children is really important. One thing that the different writers I’ve been discussing focus on is the need to engage with schools, for example. “This has to be about having a dialogue with your children…we need a Socratic approach” But psychological studies show that we are an important factor in our kids’ moral development, even if we’re not the only one. And, speaking as a moral philosopher, just because there’s no guarantee here doesn’t mean there’s not a responsibility to try: to use the influence that psychologists show that we do have, especially when we know that a lot of other influences will be pushing in the other direction. Some of the authors I’ve talked about are based in the United States, where education about climate change in some areas is minimal or actually misleading. Agarwal points out that the history that children are taught in schools here in the UK is massively sugar-coated, especially when it comes to colonialism. When even schools aren’t always teaching the truth about injustice, especially the degree to which it’s still happening, and you have misogynist or racist influencers on TikTok and YouTube who your children like it or not, will be seeing, then I think that puts even more onus on parents to do what we can."