Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: Ms. Harris has collected much research (both old and new) and assembled it into a new, convincing whole. Her book changed my entire outlook on child development.
Rating:
Summary: An Intellectual Tour-de-Force
Review: The Nurture Assumption is one of the best books I've ever read. I had lots of fun reading it, and most others will too --- though they shouldn't think that that means Harris' theory is mere 'pop psychology.' (It's not.) What Harris does is to meld the literature on child development with the literature on social psychology, which she does brilliantly. (The time she spent writing textbooks, I suppose, explains why she's able to do this so well.) No doubt Harris's thesis appears counterintuitive at first, but her argument is (for the most part) convincing: we should move beyond the nurture assumption, accepting group socialization theory in its place. Her approach, I think, explains many anomolies that advocates of 'traditional family values' ignore. In the end, Harris's vision is humane, compassionate, and thoughtful. We will be better off both individually and collectively if we listen to her. I can think of two groups who should read this book. First, it should be read by people who wonder about the state of families and children today. Most importantly, it should be read by people who are raising children --- or plan to do so in the future. Both, I predict, will enjoy it immensely.
Rating:
Summary: On the money, and decades overdue
Review: Harris's startling new book will draw a lot of flak, both from psychological "experts" and members of the public who've listened to them uncritically. Fortunately for the rest of us, the author has done her homework thoroughly and can think remarkably straight. It will be said that Harris denies there is any point in trying to be a good parent. But this is not so. What she has done is clarify where we have influence and where we don't, and in the process show us where to focus our main efforts. In reading "The Nurture Assumption" I was reminded of my own two rules of thumb about child rearing: 1. Having kids doesn't turn you into a sculptor. It just makes you a custodian who cares a very great deal about the ones you custode. 2. The best reason for trying to give kids a happy childhood is so they'll have a happy childhood.
Rating: 
Summary: What Gives With the Psychologists?
Review: Judith Rich Harris was a career psychology text book writer. It took her years of examining the research before she had her epiphany, but we must note that it was this humble text book writer, not a big gun Professor of psychology who finally comprehended that the research and what psychologists tell people do not match. When it comes to family matters, the research clearly indicates that psychology should not so quickly find parents guilty for what their children do, or for how they turn out.
One insight Harris gives us is that after a few years of school attendance, the child the parents live with and the one outsiders see is probably not the same person. The explanation is simple. Children are internally driven to assume a place among their peers in the world outside the family. Afterall, the goal of childhood is not to become a fine child but to go forth and make your way in the world. Perhaps parents who focus on their children's peer environment are not old foggy or merely responding to personal control issues. (maybe the next epiphany we get from the house of arrogance is that not all people who work a lot are workaholics. Work with unionized state mental health therapists and you may learn that anyone who works over 40 hours a week without a gun to their head is suffering from: "workaholism". "science" or politics?)
Academic reviewers and readers seem to overlook an important question raised by the mere existence and the many academic accolades of "Nurture Assumption." The question? What gives with psychologists? Is there a group think tendency afoot? Are politics and 'blame the parents' rituals causing Psychology to follow the mantra and to smoke and mirror its own "scientific" research? What kind of "science" has that problem?
I will illustrate what I am getting at. For many years, psychiatrists, psychologists, clinical social workers & pediatricians blamed mothers for schizophrenia, autism, Down's syndrome, depression, the neuroses, particularly Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The Harris book indirectly questions, at last, the blaming of the parents for just about everything their children do, despite the considerable evidence that many of the parent's are good parents.
More than a few parents find themselves wrongfully prejudged guilty by the kangaroo court of the helping professionals. Many may harbor powerful unresolved issues of their own. At least when psychoanalysis reigned as supreme 'truth in living,' "therapists" submitted to analysis before they went into practice.
Psychoanalysis may have proven to be shamanism disguised by scientific sounding 25 cent words but at least the therapists were also victims of the same shake, rattle and roll. Some people still prefer help from a real priest. At least, they know for sure who church counselors serve, or so they say.
I recommend that all parents read "The Nuture Assumption". You may need it to either defend youself against incompent child professionals of the teaching, social work, or therapist kind, or to forgive yourself for a tragic child, for whom you thought you did all you could.
Harris writes like the text book writer she is' clear but academically. It is unfortunate that there is not an abridged "for the public" version of her book for parents.
Rating: 
Summary: but there never was any nuture to begin with...
Review: Most parents let their kids space out in front of a TV for hours and hours (as well as unlimited computer games and internet). They send their kids to public schools. There is hardly any real attempt at discipline-kids demand everything they want and they almost always get it. Since most parents aren't even *trying* to shape their kids (and if they did it would usually be contradictory and confusing) then of course it will be shaped by their peers. Something has to fill the vacuum.
Rating:
Summary: a new way to think about parents and children
Review: Do parents influence their children? Of course they do. Parents teach values and lifestyle habits, and there is no doubt that abusive parents can leave lasting scars. But how do we account for the fact that siblings are very different from each other? Why do the criminal records of adopted children match their biological parents more than their adoptive parents? Why do the children of immigrant parents learn to speak the language of their new country flawlessly, while their parents speak with a noticeable accent?
These are a few of the issues that can be found in Judith Harris's excellent and controversial book, The Nurture Assumption. The author carefully critiques research from a variety of social sciences and challenges the implicit claim of modern society that parents shape their children like clay and are therefore responsible for their children's personalities, character, and mental health. The central message of the book is that parental influence has been exaggerated and peer influence underestimated by most theorists and researchers in developmental psychology.
What is the evidence for this outlandish claim? Decades of behavioral research has found that the effects of genetics are relatively large and the effects of shared environment (read family here) are relatively small when it comes to explaining the statistical variance in adult personality traits. On the other side of the fence, researchers have also found significant correlations between parenting style and children's behavior. However, as the author demonstrates, correlation does not equal causation. Dysfunctional parents may have dysfunctional children because of their genes, not their parental techniques.
If parents don't mold our adult personalities, then what does? The author makes a strong case for experiences outside of the family, particularly peer influences. She does not claim to prove this hypothesis, but offers it as a reasonable alternative to the prevailing theory. You may not be entirely convinced by this book, but you should come out of it with a healthy level of skepticism and a desire to see more and better research on this important topic.
The book is well written. The scholarship is impressive, and it is presented in a friendly, accessible style. One could make the criticism that the author belabors the point at times, and that the book could be shorter, but that is a minor complaint. Most people who criticize this book have a problem with it because they disagree with the message. But then it's hard to come out and say that the emperor has no clothes without irritating a few people.
To sum up, this book is a thought-provoking challenge to much of the parenting advice given by psychologists and other experts. It's an important book for anyone who either is a parent or has any interest in the subject matter, and I heartily recommend it.
J. Corey Butler
Rating:
Summary: How deep is our Freudianism
Review: This book seems to have left its critics in a spluttering rage. Most of the criticisms below are of two types: 1) If it's true that parents have little direct non-genetic influence on their children's development, then parents would have realized this long ago, and, so the critics say, parents would exploit their children mercilessly. It's not clear to me how this conclusion follows, or why the critics think that exploitation of children doesn't already exist. 2) Harris doesn't prove that parents don't have an influence. Of course she doesn't; that's not what she's arguing, and in any case, such a negative statement could never be proved.
The belief that parents make their children is deeply ingrained in Americans, so much so that we're blind to how little support there is for it, or how peculiar a belief it is. For example, I have had great difficulty explaining the thesis of this book to non-Americans, non-westerners in particular, in every case because these people could not comprehend that anyone would be so foolish as to believe our Freudian myths, or need to have them debunked.
Rating: 
Summary: Inspiration to everyone with a B.A. in psychology
Review: A semi-scholastic and politically charged attack on minority groups. The "The Nurture-Assumption" is neither about the biological nor the evolutionary traits of child-rearing or human behavior. It is simply about racial differences in child-rearing practices. It is about Judith Rich Harris' White neighborhood European-America and the hazardous and primitive child-rearing practices by Blacks and Hispanics. There is nothing subliminal about her message: Right-parenting, breast-feeding, aggression, neighborhoods, crimes, dysfunctional families, parenting-styles as well as others variables are fundamentally different between "European Americans" and "Hispanics and Blacks". The outcome: 1) European Americans practice the correct methods as opposed to these minority groups, 2) Children are influenced by their peers more than their parents. Well, there is one alternative. Since the author makes it clear that we cannot integrate these "type" of children in private good-standing schools, perhaps we should consider segregation.
Maybe the reason that Judith was dismissed from Harvard was her failure in research methodology. Her extraction of literature from social psychology papers that were published in the 1950s, and confirmatory searches makes this book simply pathetic and her argument banal and unoriginal. Nothing novel! Similar ideas were expressed by the eugenics more than a century ago. The 350 plus pages of cited experiments is one-directional and confirmatory. I support her rights as an author or layperson to publish, lecture, and express her views. However, this is not a book about the nurture-assumption. It should remain as an inspiration to all her colleagues who hold a B.A. in psychology and consider themselves experts on human behavior.
Rating:
Summary: The Most Important Book a Parent Can Read
Review: Judith Rich Harris has written a book that not only turns our culture's assumptions about child-rearing upside down, but also does so in a read that is funny, witty, and very enjoyable. The book provides a great deal of evidence that what we are told by the "experts" on child-rearing is often unsupported conjecture, and often fashioned from whole cloth. Yet we as parents continue to follow along, terrified of the possibility of being labeled by our peers as bad parents. The nail that sticks up is hammered down. The book does not pretend to be a child-rearing manual, and in fact offers little advice for raising children. Its purpose is to make us question the assumptions by which we raise our children. The confrontational, irreverant, and occasionally flippant tone of the book is necessary to help the reader step outside the box and look objectively at what we as parents have considered our sacred duties. The reviews critical of the book from homeschoolers are laughable. ... For the record, I think Ms. Harris is wrong about homeschool, but that's no reason to ignore 400 pages of paradigm-shifting thought. As a father of two, I feel this is the most important book I have ever read. And the funny thing is, I have developed a much better relationship with my children since I took the book's principles to heart. Once I set myself free from the responsibility to "mold" my children into good adults, I began to enjoy my children, and they me, so much more.
Rating:
Summary: Minors molding minors' minds
Review: How many metres of shelf space are taken up by books about raising children? Rich Harris sweeps away those reams of paper and tankards of ink with a grandiloquent gesture. What determines a child's behaviour? The acrimonious debates of many years over the role of genetics versus parental guidance are shown redundant by this excellent work. In short, once a child encounters peers, on the street, in school, even a working environment, it is those peers and their attitudes that nudge behaviour in various directions. Well written and firmly researched, Harris has offered a real breakthrough in understanding child development. Harris starts out with a simple truth we all know and rarely "see". All children are different. They differ from parents and each other. Even identical twins, those mythical examples of matching traits, turn out to exhibit variations in taste, dress and habits. Clearly, she notes, there is more to child development than genes. On the other hand, why, she asks, are parents under such stress to "make children behave" [or submit, or learn the piano, or . . .]. Harris demonstrates that an outside force, one poorly perceived and often unrecognized, leads children along unexpected paths. Her first clue was language. She notes immigrants to North America who adhere to their original language and culture norms produce children who adhere to values here from an early age. That was the pointer leading her to create the idea of "group socialization". A child's playmates and school chums can communicate at levels parents don't understand. Playground or street values aren't home values. As children progress through school or a work environment, peer forces can guide them in new directions. Parents may have some impact, but they lose much of their influence very early. Harris recognises the novelty of her concept. There are years of study by "socialization researchers" who have arrived at various conclusions, often widely accepted, about the impact of parenting methods on children. Harris argues most of these are flawed in method or misleading in conclusions. Even one of its most recognized practitioners ultimately admitted the published findings were unsubstantiated. Of greater concern was that these studies have produced heavy guilt feelings in parents. When the recommended methods don't produce anticipated results "it must be my fault". Harris wants to set those troubled minds at rest by understanding the real forces involved. The author doesn't absolve parents from influence on development. She merely recommends a new approach based on the new information. Peers may drive behaviour in unwanted directions, but parents still have the responsibility and power to set limits. Peer groups can be "chosen", chiefly through school choice. The evolutionary roots of a child's "normal" group of siblings and close relations has been broken down by modern society. Harris reminds us that the "nuclear family" is a recent, artificial concept. Modern social structure distinctly departure from long-established group forms. Parents must adapt to these new forms, chiefly through greater attention to how to place their children in supportive environments. It can be done; it has been done. We only need to shed long-held beliefs of parental inadequacies and take charge. This book has, of course, proven contentious. Anyone overthrowing cherished beliefs, no matter how poorly founded, will be resisted. Her findings, however, fill a niche long unidentified or misunderstood. She's fully aware that not all the information is to hand. How big does a group have to be to influence a child? What makes a group leader? A follower? These remain unanswered questions. The value of this book is in asking such questions and demanding answers. That value will remain undiminished until the research is done. Read this book and learn the questions. It is the lives of children that are at stake. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada.]
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