
A few months back I was given a list of potential guests that consisted of about a half dozen names. It was up to me to research each name and determine how they fit in the Anchored in Education platform. One of the names was Melinda Wenner Moyer. I put the name into a search and discovered that she was a journalist with a particular interest in parenting, science, and medicine. The next line I read said she was the author of the book How to Raise Kids who Aren’t Assholes: Science-based Strategies for Better Parenting, from Tots to Teens. My search stopped immediately and instead shifted to how I can purchase this book.
A couple of days later I was engrossed in Melinda’s book and realized I had to get her onto the podcast. Melinda readily agreed, but her first thought was she wasn’t a teacher. But in reading the book I could already see how this book would benefit educators, parents, soon to be parents, or, in short, everyone. I finished reading the book towards the end of 2022 and it has yet to make it to my bookshelf because I keep opening it to re-read sections. Today she joins us to talk more about the book and the implications for how her book can help educators and parents alike, find research proven strategies to better assist children.
About Melinda
Melinda Wenner Moyer is a contributing editor at Scientific American magazine and is a weekly contributor to The New York Times. She is a faculty member in the Science, Health & Environmental Reporting program at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Her first book, How To Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes, was published in July 2021 and won a gold medal in the 2022 Living Now Book Awards.
Melinda was the recipient of the 2022 Excellence in Science Journalism award from The Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the 2019 Bricker Award for Science Writing in Medicine, and her work was featured in the 2020 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology. She was also awarded a 2018 Alicia Patterson Foundation fellowship. Moyer’s work has won first place prizes in the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism, the Folio Eddie Awards and the Annual Writing Awards of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. It has also been shortlisted for a James Beard Journalism Award, a National Academy of Sciences Communication Award and a National Magazine Award. She has a master’s in Science, Health & Environmental Reporting from NYU and a background in cell and molecular biology. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her husband, two children, and her dog.