Parents responding to the ZERO TO THREE Parenting Infants and Toddlers Today poll showed excellent understanding of early childhood development, but they also underestimated young infants' emotional sensitivity and overestimated toddlers' capacities for self-regulation. This article reviews these results along with research findings on the complex emotional lives of infants, the ways that caregivers' emotions affect development in the first months of life, the development of self-awareness, and the extended period of time necessary for developing self-regulation in the preschool years. The importance of attuning to infants' internal experiences and of facilitating the development of self-regulatory skills with warm and consistent caregiving is also discussed.