Alison gopnik

One of the things I say is, 'You want to know what it's like to be a baby? It's like being in love for the first time in Paris after four double espressos.' And boy, you are alive and conscious.

We have lots of evidence that putting investments in early childhood education, even evidence from very hard-nosed economists, is one of the very best investments that the society can possibly make....

Adults often assume that most learning is the result of teaching and that exploratory, spontaneous learning is unusual. But actually, spontaneous learning is more fundamental.

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 a bunch of cushions and go across a room to give you a pen...

We learn differently as children than as adults. For grown-ups, learning a new skill is painful, attention-demanding, and slow. Children learn unconsciously and effortlessly.

Children have a very good idea of how to distinguish between fantasies and realities. It's just they are equally interested in exploring both.

What teenagers want most of all are social rewards, especially the respect of their peers.

Our babies are like penguins; penguin babies can't exist unless more than one person is taking care of them. They just can't keep going.

If parents are the fixed stars in the child's universe, the vaguely understood, distant but constant celestial spheres, siblings are the dazzling, sometimes scorching comets whizzing nearby.

I'm afraid the parenting advice to come out of developmental psychology is very boring: pay attention to your kids and love them.