Despite their diverse themes, the various articles in this special issue all focus on the possibility that the child's view of the world is infused with premises and assumptions taken on board from other people. Demonstrating that process of transmission from parent to child is not easy. One powerful strategy would be to show that parental discourse predicts the cognitive attainments of adopted children. Meantime, the articles provide encouraging evidence for the following conclusions: (1) parents vary not just in the sophistication of the emotional insight that they nurture in their children but also in the positive--or negative-- orientation of that insight; (2) mothers who offer more explanations in discussing a family conflict have children who report more flexible coping; (3) mothers' metamemory comments are associated with children's sensitivity to the way in which a given source of information supplies information; (4) mothers often invite children to contemplate the future by reminding them of similar occasions in the past; and (5) parental use of analogy is associated with greater scientific understanding on the part of the child.