Parenting books promise to show people how to raise happy, successful children, and in the process to reveal why each of us turned out the way we did. But the science of child development tells a different story about how parents influence children—a story that may shock, unsettle, and ultimately reassure anyone who has ever been a parent or a child. Yuko is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her work investigates child development and environmental influences on children’s thinking, using behavioral, neuroimaging, and computational approaches. She is an elected fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the American Psychological Association. Her work on child development has been funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1998, and has been published in top scientific journals and featured in The Atlantic, The Today Show, and Parents Magazine. She co-edited two books on brain and cognitive development, and co-authored a computational cognitive neuroscience textbook. She has received awards for research, teaching, and mentoring. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx