our next guest is a father of two and a sociologist who decided it put his training to work in raising his two kids. by, for example, giving them unique names, partly because according to studies, it would make them more likely eto have impulse control and impulse control is a great predictor of socioeconomic success. his daughter s name is e, just the letter e and his son his book parentology. everything you wanted to know about the science of raising children but were too exhausted to ask. like bribing his children to pass their math test or exposing them to raw sewage and a monkey to build up their immune systems.
with a daring at sea rescue because their 1-year-old was sick, and their boat ended up at the bottom of the ocean. now they face a wave of criticism on-line with many asking what were they thinking taking that trip with toddlers? the father said they were as prepared as possible. family members defend them as great parents. were the kauffmans giving their kids an amazing experience, or putting them in danger or both? the truth is parenthood is full of tough calls and there s no rule book. our next guest set out to write one. dalton conley, a professor of socialology and medicine at nyu. when he had kids, he raised them as a scientific experiment which tested which theories worked and which didn t. he shared the results of his new book parentology. i want to talk about the definition of parentology. you call it being a little bit more improvizational, jazz parenting. what is jazz parenting? is there a hip-hop parenting sf is there a disco parenting, a rock n roll parenting? it s def
i don t know about the others. the idea of parentology is we live in a complex scientific technical economy, and so in today s world, there s not one size fits all approach to raising successful kids or well adapted kids. really you just kind of need to roll with the punches, but don t do just whatever comes to your mind like take your kids out on a pacific ocean when they are just recovering from an infection. really be guided by the science, read the science critically, and then try it out on your own kids, revise your hypothesis, involve them like it s a learning moment, and then move on and in every decision as you say there s a lot of tough calls, and we look to scientific evidence, but we need to understand how to interpret it and implement it ourselves. well, you talk about how important it is as a parent to be flexible. that s a difficult thing, i know, for many people. i m not a parent yet, but that s something i am concerned i won t be as good as. when you put your kids thr