Moms and dads, grandma and grandpa listen up.   How you talk to that baby can make a huge difference in the kind of person they become.

I went to a meeting at the Yakima School District last night for parents of kids in the Highly Capable program.  I’m so happy to say that the “gator”, Katelyn is off to a great start in school.  She has a pretty sophisticated vocabulary for a 6 year old. She breezed through kindergarten and we hope she’ll be challenged by the program and pushed to reach her true potential as a student.I couldn’t help but think about all the conversations and stories we shared with her when she was very young and how fascinated she was by several clever instructional videos that had her recognize a stop sign as an “octagon” when she was just 18 months old.

So kids can learn from conversation at very early age and that a new study out of the U.K. shows that goes for understanding emotions as well.

English researchers are saying parents who want an empathetic child should use “mind-related comments” from their earliest interactions.

They say specific language at a very young age can help children understand the thoughts of others as they get older. Parents who talk to their kids about the thoughts they have while playing – such as frustration – were more likely to have children who, at age five, were able to understand other people’s feelings.  The first steps to a kinder and gentler world?

After observing mothers with their children from infant

JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images
JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images
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hood to kindergarten the scientists say these results demonstrate the critical role of conversations between mothers and their children in infancy. (Daily Mail)

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