Both the ongoing child-care crisis and the pandemic have highlighted our failings to protect and care for the young and the old, two groups that are critical to our success and evolution as humans. Parents and grandparents will gain insight from this free ParentEd Talks event, in which distinguished developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik, Ph.D., shares how these two vulnerable and long life stages — childhood and elderhood — play important roles in helping humans flourish.

Drawing on her own cutting-edge scientific research, Gopnik reveals fascinating insights into how caregiving relationships in childhood and old age evolve distinctive capacities for cognition. Gopnik explains how these two developmental life stages are related, and how the relationship between children and grandparents is so valuable, from strengthening our intelligence and adaptability to preserving culture and traditions.

"Children are designed to be messy and unpredictable, playful and imaginative, and very different both from their parents and from one another. The variability and flexibility of childhood allow them to innovate, create and survive in an unpredictable world." — Alison Gopnik, Ph.D.

For more ParentEd Talks, visit ParentMap.com/live.