Quotes - parenting

PARENTING

The quickest way for a parent to get a child's attention is to sit down and look comfortable.

-Anyonymous

Raising teenagers is like nailing jello to a tree.
I'm reminded of a debate the famous pediatrician Robert Mendelsohn, MD had with a psychiatrist. The panelist asked them about the Family Bed (everyone sleeping together). "It's a terrible idea," said the psychiatrist. "I'd never sleep with my children. It fosters dependency, it confuses them sexually, it's just plain wrong." The moderator asked if Dr. Mendelsohn would care to respond. "I agree with the psychiatrist, " said Dr. Mendelsohn. "Psychiatrists should not sleep with their children. But for everyone else, it's just wonderful. I gives infants the warmth and security they seek. It enhances emotional health and it brings the family closer.

-Ted Koren

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

-James Baldwin

The best thing to read when trying to raise a child is the child. Maybe it is even more important that we learn to read ourselves...
In the beginning, our children don't have any problems. They simply reflect our ignorance, just as a thermometer registers a fever. There is nothing you can do to the thermometer that will change the illness. You can shake down the thermometer so that the fever doesn't show, but the fever itself is not affected. The problem is not in the child any more than the sickness is in the thermometer...
Now the interesting thing is that we don't have problems either. We are only ignorant of truth. Actually ignorance is a positive step for most of us. We have to move from the wrong ideas we are certain of, to knowing that we don't know. Once that occurs,
understanding comes rapidly, for there is nothing to interfere with it...
Our children are not images of our selves but of our thoughts about ourselves...
But we must also have regard for them, for their right to be wrong or, more correctly, for their ability to learn to be right...
Sooner or later he must consciously seek truth as we are doing. When this time comes, he must have confidence that truth is and that he can perceive it. If we are constantly fixing our children, they will not have this confidence.. .

-Polly Berrien Berends

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element ... It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather ... I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether the crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized.

-Haim Ginott

The evolution of culture is ultimately determined by the amount of love, understanding and freedom experienced by its children... Every abandonment, every betrayal, every hateful act towards children returns tenfold a few decades later upon the historical stage, while every empathic act that helps a child become what he or she wants to become, every expression of love toward children heals society and moves it in unexpected, wondrous new directions.

-Lloyd DeMause

Childhood is that state which ends the moment a puddle is first viewed as an obstacle instead of an opportunity.

-Kathy Williams

Remember, your basic assignment as a parent is to work yourself out of a job.

-Paul Lewis

Every human being, as he grows into childhood, must inevitably be hampered and opposed by the restrictions of his environment, and the best we can hope for is to modify somewhat the urgency of this conflict. The degree to which we are considerate of our baby's early needs, however, may be the measure of his later ability to feel secure in a world of change and to adapt himself to the necessities of circumstance.

-C. Anderson Aldrich

A baby's cry is precisely as serious as it sounds.

-Jean Liedloff

Never leave a baby alone to cry. This is an absolute rule. He may be crying because he is hungry, cold, too hot, wet, etc; if so, these things may be attended to. But he may be none of these things; he may be crying because he is frightened, and if not reassured early this is a dangerous condition. If an infant in the early weeks and months of life is allowed to remain frightened and alone, his first impression of the world into which he has come is that it is inhospitable, dangerous and lonely, and there is no use seeking help. He must try to fend for himself and not expect help; but he cannot fend for himself; he is helpless. It is not a matter for surprise that such impressions may color his view of the world and the people in it permanently. Much of his subsequent conduct will be devoted to the object of making himself as secure as he can in an insecure world.

-M. Bevan-Brown

Except in rare times of great stress or danger, there is no reason why we cannot say 'No' to children in just as kind a way as we say 'Yes'. Both are words. Both convey ideas which even tiny children are smart enough to grasp. One says, 'We don't do it that way', the other says 'That's the way we do it'. Most of the time, that is what children want to find out. Except when overcome by fatigue, curiosity, or excitement, they want to do it right, do as we do, fit in, take part.

-John Holt