Beyond Intelligence

Secrets for Raising Happily Productive Kids

In a stress-filled and fast-paced world, it is more important than ever that parents know something about the coping skills their children will need for resiliency and success across the lifespan. Beyond Intelligence provides that knowledge. It’s a book for parents and teachers interested in helping children and teens become the strongest, most confident, most fulfilled, and most successful people they can be.

Using current research findings, Joanne Foster and I have written what reviewers describe as a reader-friendly parenting companion that helps parents nurture their children’s abilities at every stage of development. Beyond Intelligence is also a wellspring of information for teachers who are working alongside parents to support children’s optimal learning and development. While we have incorporated our contemporaries’ findings in cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, and educational psychology, the tone of the book is conversational, and we’ve included many stories from the children and adults we’ve worked with over the years.

In Beyond Intelligence, we show parents how to help their children discover what they’re interested in, and develop those interests into skills they can carry through their lifetimes. Educators will also benefit from the carefully referenced material we provide on such topics as intelligence-building, creativity, assessments, programming, parent-teacher relationships, social-emotional development, and more.

The emphasis of the book is on solid time-tested habits, attitudes, and behaviours that help children become stronger and happier adults: hard work, persistence, patience, respect, and imagination.

Available for Purchase

Praise for Beyond Intelligence

“In this insightful and optimistic guide, Matthews and Foster (coauthors of Being Smart about Gifted Education) explore the premise that all children have the potential to be creative, self-reliant, and innovative thinkers. According to the authors, there are many different kinds of intelligence―Picasso, for instance, had terrific visual and spatial skills, but had learning disabilities and didn’t do well in traditional studies. In order to help kids develop and grow, parents don’t need to pay for dozens of music lessons each week. Rather, nurture happens “in the natural flow of family life,” when parents read to their children, listen to them, and explore their interests. School is still a huge part of most families’ lives, of course, and the authors devote a section of the book to formal education, considering parents’ roles at school and how they might approach tough educational decisions. Throughout, the authors helpfully redefine familiar terms. Creativity, for example, is not expressed through unpredictable artsyness; it is expressed through bringing together competence at a given task with novel insights and critical analysis. Parents everywhere will be edified and empowered by this inspiring book.”

Starred Review in Publishers Weekly

“A wonderful, insightful, informed, and practical guide for today’s parents. Your children will thank you!”

Carol Dweck, PhD, Stanford University; author, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

“What a terrific guide for parents seeking to help their daughters and sons make the most of their potential! I applaud the authors for unpacking and liberating the concept of ‘intelligence.’”

Chester Finn, Jr, Former United States Assistant Secretary of Education

“If you only have time to read one book on parenting, make this the book.”

Rosemary Evans, Principal, University of Toronto Schools

“Beyond Intelligence is a must-read for parents, educators and professionals. If you want to help children be smart AND happy, read this book!”

Tracy Dennis, PhD, Hunter College, City University of New York

“The writing is absolutely masterful – vibrant, rich, warm, smart, accessible. The “Our Secrets” section is brilliant. Beyond Intelligence is, well, beyond excellent!”

Felice Kaufmann, PhD, Creativity expert

“Dona Matthews and Joanne Foster present parents with an evidence-based sweet spot between tiger mom and creative laissez-faire.”

Rena Subotnik, PhD, Director, American Psychological Association Center for Gifted Education Policy

“Beyond Intelligence is a refreshing and much-needed update on intelligence and its development.”

Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD, Author, Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined

Excerpts from Beyond Intelligence

“It’s a popular misconception that some children have a higher potential for learning and achievement than others. The more that’s discovered about how the brain continues to change across the lifespan, the more support there is for the view that learning is a gradual, open-ended process.”

“The best nurturing happens in the daily flow of everyday life. Children’s intelligence, resilience, motivation, and many other capacities develop when their parents allow them enough time and opportunities to discover who they are and what they’re interested in.”

“The future of the planet depends on children getting the learning opportunities they need, when they need them, so they can make mindful choices, and so their interests and strengths can become qualities and accomplishments they share with the world.”

“There are many inexpensive and inventive resources that parents, teachers, and children can tap into for personal enrichment, extended learning, and fun…Never make assumptions that a child’s best learning opportunities depend on abundant finances. That’s hardly ever true.”

“Sometimes not doing homework comes from arrogance. Other times, it’s due to laziness or not wanting to appear too clever. Or maybe the work’s too hard and the child has no one to assist them, or they’re reluctant to ask for help. Some kids don’t have a quiet space in which to do their work at home. And then there are those who don’t do their homework because it’s insufferably boring and they have more useful, interesting, or compelling things to do with their time.”

“High academic intelligence is no guarantee of high emotional intelligence, and all children—no matter how smart they are—need help learning to cope with the complexity and intensity of their feelings.”