Revealing what every parent needs to know about what goes on in a child's brain during the critical first months and years of life, Ann B. Barnet, M.D., and Richard J. Barnet explore children's genetic tendencies toward anger, fear, and other emotions. Showing how interactions with other people can actually organize and reorganize a child's brain, they offer invaluable guidance to parents and caregivers by describing the essential characteristics of healthy parent-child relationships and good child care, as well as how the effects of bad early experiences can be overcome later in life. An unprecedented, up-to-the-minute look at the way human relationships and genetics shape the personalities and destinies of children, The Youngest Minds reveals more clearly than ever before how parents, for better or worse, become partners in the development of their child's mind.