One of the most distinctive evolutionary features of human beings is our unusually long, protected childhood. — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
What happens when children reach puberty earlier and adulthood later? The answer is: a good deal of teenage weirdness. — 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
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 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
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
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
You read a bunch of books and you get a bunch of how-tos, and you take a bunch of classes and you… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Being a developmental psychologist didn't make me any better at dealing with my own children, no. I muddled through, and, believe me,… — 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
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
Even the very youngest children already are perfectly able to discriminate between the imaginary and the real, whether in books or movies… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
“If the child is a budding psychologist, we parents are the laboratory rats.” — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Children are the most amazing thing in the universe, as far as I'm concerned. If you're worrying about how it's going to… — 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
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
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
“Child abuse isn’t evil because it may produce neurotic adults but because it abuses children.” — 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
In most places and times in human history, babies have had not just one person but lots of people around who were… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
Scientists learn about the world in three ways: They analyze statistical patterns in the data, they do experiments, and they learn from… — Alison Gopnik Copy Share Image
“Loving children doesn't give them a destination. It gives them sustenance for the journey.” — 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
Teaching is a very effective way to get children to learn something specific - this tube squeaks, say, or a squish then… — 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
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
