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Books for New & Expecting Parents Browse books on having and raising newborns, including "Taking Care of Your Child, Ninth Edition." Learn more | See related books
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Don't be swayed by the austere title, what this book does best is corral and explain recent studies on what babies and toddlers understand and when: When do they start to feel empathy? When are they able to understand that hitting hurts? When can they be expected to understand rules? What's the deal with invisible friends? It's given me a new perspective and a lot more sympathy for my into-everything son.
It's also a page-turning easy read and utterly fascinating-- you'll want to go through with a highlighter to pick out all of the brilliant points. Would make a great gifts for parents & parents-to-be!
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36 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Have you ever wondered about the inner life of children, how they understand things, what their stream of consciousness is like, how they perceive the world, what their feelings are really like? I watched my own children grow up, talked with them daily, fed them, played with them, but always felt that I was missing a lot about their inner world. Gopnik answered some of my questions and showed me other questions that I hadn't thought of asking.
Gopnick argues, for example, that young children don't have the same self narrative adults have. I remember being appalled by my daughter's inability to describe what happened on her recent trip to the zoo. Gopnick argues that this happens because very young children haven't developed the story about themselves that allows them to go back and fetch prior events the way adults do. When I return from a trip to the zoo, I retain a story about finding a parking spot, paying admission, watching the monkeys near the entrance, etc. With very young children, there is no such narrative, only a series of events. These events are remembered. So if I ask a more direct question, like did you enjoy the monkeys in the big cage, she tells me about the big monkey chasing the smaller monkey.
Gopnik emphasizes the sophistication of children who can easily distinguish between imaginary, possible, and real objects. She tells us about how children can make sophisticated judgments about causal relationships after having seen only a few relevant events.Read more ›
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
This book presents some interesting experimental results from early childhood research. (The "Baby" of the title actually means the "Child up to Age 5," a rather more inclusive category!) These results tell us that a lot more is going on in children's minds than scientists had previously thought, especially scientists who managed to avoid spending any time with children.
I wish more of the book were about the experiments. There is too great a ratio of speculation to actual results, and a lot of the speculation is based on the author's experience as a mother, but without the intimacy of a memoir.
Nevertheless, the book is worth skimming for the experiments alone. These are fascinating in themselves, and you can feel free to form your own conjectures from them.
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42 of 49 people found the following review helpful
I bought this because I really enjoyed "The Scientist in the Crib" and I was hoping for more along those lines. What I got however, was exactly the same book as The Scientist in the Crib - same experiments, same analysis, only I paid more for it and two of authors of the previous book were stripped of credit. This book would be great if I hadn't read it already.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
The book is a little dry but it provides great insights (backed up by the actual research) into understanding what is going on inside kids' heads. As opposed to what many past generations had thought, babies and kids actually posess tremendous capacity for the information processing, they are very smart and intuitive. And they are also much more empathetic, creative, and imaginitive than most adults. The book provides lots of actual examples of what you might have been observing in your kids but not understanding fully what it means. I liked the chapter about role-playing and imaginary friends. It is helpful to know that that child is capable of making a very clear distinction between what is imaginary and what is real. Some parents worry that their kids would wander off "too far" into imaginary world. The book provides ideas for the easy to do reality checks for the parents :) Great idea to read the book even before you become a parent.
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This is a very interesting book, reviewing various research and results of how children's brain's work, particularly focused on the early years. Like the Scientist in the Crib, it is a valuable book for any parent, especially of a young child, in that it will completely change your perception of how your child is thinking and what they are doing and, to a lesser extent, your role as a parent.
I did find Scientist in the Crib more interesting, but it could simply be that having read it first, this book had less new content.
Still, the author's writing is clear and easy to read, and the studies of brain dynamics are always interesting.
I highly recommend this or Scientist in the Crib for any parent.
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This item: The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life
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