Every time you give a parent a sense of success or of empowerment, you're offering it to the baby indirectly. Because every time a parent looks at that baby and says 'Oh, you're so wonderful,' that baby just bursts with feeling good about themselves.

Reading to children at night, responding to their smiles with a smile, returning their vocalizations with one of your own, touching them, holding them - all of these further a child's brain development and future potential, even in the earliest months.

A grandchild is a miracle, but a renewed relationship with your own children is even a greater one.

Grandparents who want to be truly helpful will do well to keep their mouths shut and their opinions to themselves until these are requested.

You learn more from your mistakes than you do from your successes.

Families need families. Parents need to be parented. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles are back in fashion because they are necessary. Stresses on many families are out of proportion to anything two parents can handle.

A newborn already has nine months of experience when she is born.