Adults tend to think they have much free will. Kids younger than six are less sure. They may be more realistic!
Alison GopnikIt's turns out to be much easier to simulate a grandmaster chess player than it is to simulate a 2-year-old.
Alison GopnikWe pass our values, ideas and moral character on to our children, but we do that knowing that our children are going to revise our knowledge and reshape their values. There's something very paradoxical and profound about being a parent as opposed to parenting. We put in all this effort and energy not so that we can shape a child of a particular sort, but so that all sorts of possibilities can happen in the future.
Alison GopnikChildhood is a fundamental part of all human lives, parents or not, since that's how we all start out. And yet babies and young children are so mysterious and puzzling and even paradoxical.
Alison Gopnik