Bringing Up Baby

Bababababa, dadadadada, ahgagaga. Got that?

Babies are speaking to us all the time, but most of us have no clue what they’re saying. To us non-babies, it all sounds like charming, mysterious, gobbledegook. To researchers, though, babbling is knowable, predictable, and best of all, teachable. This week, we’ll find out how to decipher the vocabulary, and the behavior, of the newest members of the human family.

In the second half of the show, we’ll look at the relationship between children and the adults who care for them. Alison Gopnik, a psychology and philosophy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, says parents—especially middle-class parents—view their children as entities they can mold into a specific image.

“The idea is that if you just do the right things, get the right skills, read the right books, you’re going to be able to shape your child into a particular kind of adult,” she says.

But, she says, this view doesn’t align with the research on children’s development. In her latest book, The Gardener and the Carpenter, Alison lays out an alternative way to think about the relationship between parents and children.

Read the whole story (subscription may be required): NPR