In The Philosophical Baby (Farrar Straus Giroux, $25), child psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik says children are the research and development department of the human species. A professor of psychology at University of California at Berkeley, she examines kids’ imaginations and ideas, and finds that the way they play, pretend and explore are part of the most profound aspects of human nature. Her new book isn’t so much a how-to manual for parents as an exploration of what it’s like to be a baby. 

The bottom line? It’s all about play.

Q: One of the mysteries of childhood has always been why little kids spend so much time pretending. You make the case that it’s just about the most important thing they do.

A: People used to think that children don’t understand the difference between pretend and reality. They do. When children play, they’re exploring all the possible ways the world can be. They’re exercising that capacity for understanding all the possibilities of how people can be. They learn through pretend.

Q: Which suggests that the No Child Left Behind policies of the federal government reflect a bungled understanding of how kids really learn?

A: Learning through play is a much deeper and profound learning than learning to recognize letters – especially for younger children.

Q: When exactly does that go away? 

A: I don’t think any of this ever comes to a halt. Even as adults, we still have a need for free pretend. I think the kind of role that pretend play has for very young children is a lot like the role that fiction, novels and plays has for adults. What does change is the balance. For babies and preschoolers, that openness and exploration is what they do all day long.

Q: The Jesuits famously said, “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will give you the man.” Did they get that right?

A: One of the things we know is that children continue to be flexible – more than we would have thought – right through adulthood. But I think they were right in that the early period is particularly important. We become less flexible as we get older, especially after we cross that threshold, around the time we start sending children to school.

If you look at different cultures, you see there’s something different about the sixth or seventh year. That’s when children start to learn very specific things – whether it’s to cook or use a bow and arrow. There’s a shift to learning specific skills, learning how to be a productive adult in your particular culture.

Q: What do you mean when you call children “the R&D department of the human species”? 

A: One of the most distinctive things about human beings is that we have the capacity for change. You see it in the fact that each new generation does things a little differently. What I’d argue is that children play a really essential role in that change.

As parents, our job is to shape a new generation of children that’s not just us, who are different in ways we can’t even anticipate. The goal is to let them be free to pick their own goals, to be very different from us. We don’t just depend on biological evolution. We have this capacity for cultural evolution. 

Q: You write that babies require relatively more anesthetics to knock them out than adults. It’s fascinating, but what does it signify? 

A: It turns out that anesthesia affects the balance of cholinergic transmitters, the chemicals that seem to make our brains better at learning. And what seems to happen is that young animals and babies have many more of those transmitters than adults do, which makes sense since they’re much better at learning. It also means they may be more conscious than we are.

Q: One of the best things about being a parent is getting down on the floor and playing like a child all over again.

A: Yes, it gives us a chance to go back and participate in some of that child play, to be part of these wonderful little dramas. One of the unsung things about being a parent is you get to do the most adult thing there is, what almost defines being adult – which is taking care of someone else. It drives me crazy when you go to a dinner party and someone says, `Let’s talk about something grownup like real estate or sports.’

Q: You’re also interested in the phenomenon of imaginary friends. What do you make of the fact that some kids have these friends and are absolutely convinced they exist, while other kids just go for the flesh and blood? 

A: It’s the sociable children, the ones who are more interested in other people – they’re the ones more likely to have imaginary friends. 

Q: It’s easy for us parents to see how we influence our children, but in fact they shape us as much as we shape them.  You’re a strong believer in the human capacity for change, aren’t you?

A: I think one of the most distinctive things about human beings is that we do have a capacity for change. We see that by the fact that each new generation does things a little differently than before. And what I argue is that children play a really essential role in that change. We can shape a new generation of children that’s not just us and different in ways we can’t anticipate.

Q: So in other words, our children shape us as much as we shape them?

A: Look at some of the great spiritual questions: What makes our life meaningful? How can we continue to exist after we’re not here anymore? For most parents, the answers are our children and our relationship to our children. It’s not about how will I make my children smarter, it’s much more the basic fundamental value of the act of parenting itself. Just taking care of a child is very deep, profound part of human life.

Sara Solovitch is an associate editor of Bay Area Parent.