“Loving children doesn't give them a destination. It gives them sustenance for the journey.” — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
One of the most distinctive evolutionary features of human beings is our unusually long, protected childhood. — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
“Child abuse isn’t evil because it may produce neurotic adults but because it abuses children.” — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Being a grandmother is a wonderful thing, so my advice is skip the children. Go straight to the grandchildren. — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Caring, whether for children or the dying, shouldn't be instrumental. It should be an intrinsic, moral good. — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
“If the child is a budding psychologist, we parents are the laboratory rats.” — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Like most parents, I think, my children have been the source of some of my most intense joys and despairs, my deepest… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
“The dominant view was that children were essentially defective adults. They were defined by the things they didn’t know and couldn’t do.” — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Putting together philosophy and children would have been difficult for most of history. But very fortunately for me, when I started graduate… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
If parents are the fixed stars in the child's universe, the vaguely understood, distant but constant celestial spheres, siblings are the dazzling,… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Each new generation of children grows up in the new environment its parents have created, and each generation of brains becomes wired… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Siblings are the guarantors that the private childhood world - so unlike the adult world that scientists are only just beginning to… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
We learn differently as children than as adults. For grown-ups, learning a new skill is painful, attention-demanding, and slow. Children learn unconsciously… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
The youngest children have a great capacity for empathy and altruism. There's a recent study that shows even 14-month-olds will climb across… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Some people say that parents don't matter, and that's not true at all. The irony is that we pay attention to all… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
“It’s not that children are little scientists — it’s that scientists are big children. Scientists actually are the few people who as… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
We pass our values, ideas and moral character on to our children, but we do that knowing that our children are going… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Young children seem to be learning who to share this toy with and figure out how it works, while adolescents seem to… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
We have lots of evidence that putting investments in early childhood education, even evidence from very hard-nosed economists, is one of the… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Instead of just saying, "I love my baby and I pick him up because he's adorable and it's so nice to cuddle… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
There is a tension between our desire to get our kids to turn out a particular way versus letting them develop to… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
We provide a secure, stable space for children to grow up in, so children will be able to take risks and have… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
“So our job as parents is not to make a particular kind of child. Instead, our job is to provide a protected… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
People talked about being a parent, or being a mother or a father. We don't talk about "wiving" our husbands or "friending"… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
All of us gardeners know that nothing comes out the way you planned. It's a different garden every year, and it's always… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Caring for children has always been one of the deepest and most satisfying things that a human being does, and yet it… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
I've had three of my own children and spent my professional life thinking about children. And yet I still find my relation… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
We say that children are bad at paying attention, but we really mean that they're bad at not paying attention - they… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Childhood is a fundamental part of all human lives, parents or not, since that's how we all start out. And yet babies… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Babies and young children are like the research and development division of the human species, and we grown-ups are production and marketing, — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Ours is an age of pedagogy. Anxious parents instruct their children more and more, at younger and younger ages, until they're reading… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
If parents are the fixed stars in the childs universe, the vaguely understood, distant but constant celestial spheres, siblings are the dazzling,… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
The real excitement is collaborating with computer scientists and neuroscientists and starting to understand in detail how children learn so much so… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
One of the best ways of understanding human nature is to study children. After all, if we want understand who we are,… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
I'm the oldest of six children and I had my own first baby when I was 23. So I've always been interested… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Children have a very good idea of how to distinguish between fantasies and realities. It's just they are equally interested in exploring… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
We know that kids who grow up in an environment of warmth and support will thrive and function in whatever environment they… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Successful creative adults seem to combine the wide-ranging exploration and openness we see in children with the focus and discipline we see… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Asking questions is what brains were born to do, at least when we were young children. For young children, quite literally, seeking… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Philosophers and psychologists have long puzzled over the question of how we know as much as we do despite our limited experiences. One way… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Adults often assume that most learning is the result of teaching and that exploratory, spontaneous learning is unusual. But actually, spontaneous learning is more… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Adults tend to think they have much free will. Kids younger than six are less sure. They may be more realistic! — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
From an evolutionary perspective children are, literally, designed to learn. Childhood is a special period of protected immaturity. It gives the young breathing time… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
There is a tension between our desire to get our kids to turn out a particular way versus letting them develop to be their… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
“Instead, it may be that experience itself has changed our brains so that we perceive and interpret the world in a certain way. Once… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Caring for children has always been one of the deepest and most satisfying things that a human being does, and yet it is hard… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Imaginary friends are one of the weirder forms of pretend play in childhood. But the research shows that imaginary friends actually help children understand… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
“Like their parents, the Korean children used more verbs than the English-speaking kids, while the English-speaking kids used more nouns. But in addition, the… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
“We decided to become development psychologists and study children because there aren't any Martians. These brilliant beings with the little bodies and big heads… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Each new generation of children grows up in the new environment its parents have created, and each generation of brains becomes wired in a… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
