Ready or Not: Preparing Our Kids to Thrive in an Uncertain and Rapidly Changing World
Madeline Levine
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Those who see errors as opportunities to learn and try again are the people who will most quickly find new solutions. (This is how our children become resilient.) Those who freeze and panic when they make mistakes will find it much harder to adapt.”
“if our children are to thrive in a world that is rapidly evolving and full of uncertainty, they need less structure and more play.”
“Three psychosocial achievements - a sense of self, the belief that we can have an impact on our circumstances, and the ability to regulate our emotions - allow us to handle challenges, setbacks, and disappointments. These attributes are the scaffolding upon which intimacy, meaning, and mental health are built. Ultimately, autonomy - being capable of both healthy separation and healthy connection - signals the successful completion of adolescent tasks. In almost all cultures, adolescence begins with a bold psychological move away from parents and ends with a mature return to the family relationship and an expanded repertoire of friendships and intimate relationships.”
“Parents who have more than one child are very aware that, while we certainly have an impact on our child's development, it has as much to do with them as with us. "I can't believe how different my kids are" should inform us that child development is an uneven process only partly tied to parenting (and no one knows exactly how much that "partly" is).”
“Learning in an interactive setting as opposed to a passive one is conducive to the mix of soft and academic skills we're looking to develop in our kids.”
“we must be certain that our children can face these challenges armed with a well-developed moral compass.”
“Without a solid ethical grounding, children risk growing into adults who, however outwardly accomplished, lack emotional depth, have impaired social and family relationships, and are vulnerable to depression and despair. But the danger goes further and broader: in the many interviews I conducted, the recurring theme was ethical accountability. Issues that are critical today will be urgent tomorrow. Who will regulate AI? Who will have access to the extraordinary medical breakthroughs that are surely coming? How will technological research be controlled? What reasoning will shape our decisions about energy production and fossil fuels? How do we prevent democracy from deteriorating under authoritarian encroachment? “Winner takes all” isn’t a moral philosophy that can successfully carry us through this century. Our children need to understand how to make complex decisions with moral implications and ramifications. More than any other area of concern I have after researching this book, I’ve concluded that it is exactly in this area of moral reasoning that the stakes are so high and our attention so lacking”
“We should be encouraging our children to push themselves, to develop their talents and passions, but we should also be aware that the bromide “You can do anything” is wishful thinking.”
“Too many of the teenagers I encounter in my practice and across the country are late in developing what it will take to function as an adult and create adult relationships: agency, independence, intimacy, fortitude, and self-reliance. Often it's because their community (not just parents but also peers, teachers, and extended family) is focused exclusively on the high-school paper chase and fails to encourage these qualities. I try desperately to convince these teens and their parents that delaying the emotional work of adolescence is dangerous. "We're discovering that the brain during adolescence is very malleable, very plastic," Steinberg says. "It has a heightened capacity to change in response to experience. That cuts both ways: On the one hand it means that the brain is especially susceptible to toxic experiences that can harm it, but it also means that the brain is susceptible to positive influences that can promote growth. That's an opportunity we're squandering.”
“Kids who learn early in life that they're capable of mastering activities that at first feel a little stressful grow up better able to handle stress of all kinds.”
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Book Keywords:
child-development, autonomy, kids, brain-development, interactive, montessori, stress, parenting, learning, soft-skills, adolescence
