Instawife on Lileks new book

Helen Smith, aka the InstaWife, has a review of Lilek's new book up on TCS.

Most parents worry about the damage they may be inflicting on their children by following parenting advice touted by parenting guides, mental health professionals, school personnel and even talk show hosts. Even those uncouth parents who try to tune out the current fads of child discipline and advice are swayed by community mores, school rules and the jail time involved if they vary too much from the norm. But many of us wonder how much of this advice is not only unhelpful, but just plain wrong. How can we know what will be the outcome of time outs, drugging kids with Ritalin, withholding discipline or sending kids to Brat Camp? Perhaps in the future, we will be looking back, wondering why we followed the advice given by well-meaning ninnies when in fact, there were other methods that might have worked better. The parents in James Lileks' new book on bad parenting advice probably wondered the same thing.

I think it always wise to remember that a good deal of what we know to be true is flat-out wrong.