Best Parent Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 30

“The child who would be an adult must give up any lingering childlike sense of parental power, either the magical ability to solveyour problems for you or the dreaded ability to make you turn back into a child. When you are no longer hiding from your parents, or clinging to them, and can accept them as fellow human beings, then they may do the same for you.”

Giving Humans May Children Problem Would Be Turns Parent Human Beings Ability Accepting Growing Up Giving Up Adults Fellows Hiding Clinging Childlike Parental Lingering

Author:Frank Pittman

“Parents can fail to cheer your successes as wildly as you expected, pointing out that you are sharing your Nobel Prize with a couple of other people, or that your Oscar was for supporting actress, not really for a starring role. More subtly, they can cheer your successes too wildly, forcing you into the awkward realization that your achievement of merely graduating or getting the promotion did not warrant the fireworks and brass band.”

“Parents have subtle ways of humbling you, of reminding you of your origins, perhaps by showing up at the moment of your greatest glory and reminding you where you came from and demonstrating that you still have some of it between your toes.”

Way Stills Moments Parent Glory Subtle Toes Reminding Humbling Showing Up Demonstrating

Author:Frank Pittman

“Parents vary in their sense of what would be suitable repayment for creating, sustaining, and tolerating you all those years, andwhat circumstances would be drastic enough for presenting the voucher. Obviously there is no repayment that would be sufficient . . . but the effort to call in the debt of life is too outrageous to be treated as anything other than a joke.”

Years Enough Would Be Life Is Parent Effort Circumstances Creating Jokes Debt Treated Sufficient Vary Outrageous Suitable Presenting Sustaining Drastic Vouchers Repayment

Author:Frank Pittman

“Some parents were awful back then and are awful still. The process of raising you didn't turn them into grown-ups. Parents who were clearly imperfect can be helpful to you. As you were trying to grow up despite their fumbling efforts, you had to develop skills and tolerances other kids missed out on. Some of the strongest people I know grew up taking care of inept, invalid, or psychotic parents--but they know the parents weren't normal, healthy, or whole.”

People Knows Trying Stills Whole Care Kids Turns Grows Process Parent Effort Growing Up Grew Healthy Skills Normal Grew Up Tolerance Despite Awful Helpful Strongest Imperfect Psychotic

Author:Frank Pittman

“In colonial America, the father was the primary parent. . . . Over the past two hundred years, each generation of fathers has hadless authority than the last. . . . Masculinity ceased to be defined in terms of domestic involvement, skills at fathering and husbanding, but began to be defined in terms of making money. Men had to leave home to work. They stopped doing all the things they used to do.”

Men Years Two Home Lasts America Past Used Father Parent Term Generations Skills Authority Hundred Defined Primaries Making Money Masculinity Involvement Over The Past Fathering

Author:Frank Pittman

“Parents have to get over the idea that their children belong just to them; children are a family affair.”

Children Ideas Parent Family Affair Get Over

Author:Frank Pittman

“In considering the ledger equal, understand the greatest gift you have given your parents is the opportunity to raise you. The things a child gets from parents can't compare to the things a parent gets from raising a child. Only by experiencing this can you understand the degree to which children give meaning to parents' lives.”

Giving Children Opportunity Given Parent Equal Degrees Raises Compare Considering Raising Children Greatest Gifts

Author:Frank Pittman

“Negotiating the adolescent stage is neither quick nor easy. . . . I have often said to parents, "If it isn't illegal, immoral, orfattening, give it your blessing." We do much better . . . if we find and support all the places we can appropriately say yes, and say only the no's that really matter.”

Ifs Giving Said Matter Easy Parent Support Stage Blessing Illegal Adolescence Immoral Negotiating

Author:Virginia Satir

“Parents teach in the toughest school in the word: The School for Making People. You are the board of education, the principal, theclassroom teacher, and the janitor, all rolled into two. . . . There are few schools to train you for your job, and there is no general agreement on the curriculum. . . . You are on duty, or at least on call, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for at least 18 years for each child you have. Besides that, you have to contend with an administration that has two leaders or bosses, whichever the case may be.”

People Years May Children Two School Jobs Parent Hours Leader Teach Cases Teacher Duty Train Administration Boards Agreement Boss Principal Curriculum Janitor Board Of Education

Author:Virginia Satir

“In the nurturing family...parents see themselves as empowering leaders not as authoritative bosses. They see their job primarily as one of teaching their children how to be truly human in all situations. They readily acknowledge to the child their poor judgment as well as their good judgment; their hurt, anger, or disappointment as well as their joy. The behavior of these parents matches what they say.”

Humans Wells Children Jobs Joy Parent Hurt Poor Situation Leader Teaching Behavior Judgment Disappointment Acknowledge Empowering Boss Nurturing Good Judgment

Author:Virginia Satir

“The fetish of the great university, of expensive colleges for young women, is too often simply a fetish. It is not based on a genuine desire for learning. Education today need not be sought at any great distance. It is largely compounded of two things, of a certain snobbishness on the part of parents, and of escape from home on the part of youth. And to those who must earn quickly it is often sheer waste of time. Very few colleges prepare their students for any special work.”

“Anyone who has ever been a mother or father and is at all honest knows from experience how difficult it can be for parents to accept certain aspects of their children. It is especially painful to have to admit this if we really love our child and want to respect his or her individuality yet are unable to do so.”

Ifs Knows Want Children Mother Certain Father Parent Difficult Accepting Honest Aspect Our Children Individuality Painful Love Our Children

Book:For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

Source: For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

“Every life and every childhood is filled with frustrations; we cannot imagine it otherwise, for even the best mother cannot satisfy all her child's wishes and needs. It is not the suffering caused by frustration, however, that leads to emotional illness, but rather the fact that the child is forbidden by the parents to experience and articulate this suffering, the pain felt at being wounded.”

Needs Children Facts Pain Mother Suffering Wish Felt Parent Imagine Childhood Emotional Filled Illness Frustration Wounded Forbidden Best Mother

Book:For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

Source: For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

“The knowledge that you were beaten and that this, as your parents tell you, was for your own good may well be retained (although not always), but the suffering caused by the way you were mistreated will remain unconscious and will later prevent you from empathizing with others. This is why battered children grow up to be mothers and fathers who beat their offspring”

Source: For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence

“The attempt to be an ideal parent, that is, to behave correctly toward the child, to raise her correctly, not to give to little ortoo much, is in essence an attempt to be the ideal child--well behaved and dutiful--of one's own parents. But as a result of these efforts the needs of the child go unnoticed. I cannot listen to my child with empathy if I am inwardly preoccupied with being a good mother; I cannot be open to what she is telling me.”

Ifs Needs Giving Wells Children Littles Mother Parent Results Effort Empathy Ideals Essence Raises My Children Behave Unnoticed Good Mother Being A Good Mother

Author:Alice Miller

“Till now, society has protected the adult and blamed the victim. It has been abetted in its blindness by theories, still in keeping with the pedagogical principles of our great- grandparents, according to which children are viewed as crafty creatures, dominated by wicked drives, who invent stories and attack their innocent parents or desire them sexually. In reality, children tend to blame themselves for their parents' cruelty and to absolve the parents, whom they invariably love, of all responsibility.”

Source: The Untouched Key: Tracing Childhood Trauma in Creativity and Destructiveness

“We as a nation need to be reeducated about the necessary and sufficient conditions for making human beings human. We need to be reeducated not as parents--but as workers, neighbors, and friends; and as members of the organizations, committees, boards--and, especially, the informal networks that control our social institutions and thereby determine the conditions of life for our families and their children.”

“In today's world parents find themselves at the mercy of a society which imposes pressures and priorities that allow neither timenor place for meaningful activities and relations between children and adults, which downgrade the role of parents and the functions of parenthood, and which prevent the parent from doing things he wants to do as a guide, friend, and companion to his children.”

World Want Children Today Parent Roles Activity Adults Mercy Function Relation Pressure Guides Priorities Meaningful Companion Parenthood Today's World

Book:2 Wrlds Childhood

Source: 2 Wrlds Childhood

“The parent must not give in to his desire to try to create the child he would like to have, but rather help the child to develop--in his own good time--to the fullest, into what he wishes to be and can be, in line with his natural endowment and as the consequence of his unique life in history.”

Giving Trying Children Helping Desire Wish Parent Natural Lines Unique Consequence Individuality Good Times Endowment Unique Life Natural Endowment

Author:Bruno Bettelheim

“A parent who from his own childhood experience is convinced of the value of fairy tales will have no difficulty in answering his child's questions; but an adult who thinks these tales are only a bunch of lies had better not try telling them; he won't be able to related them in a way which would enrich the child's life.”

Thinking Way Trying Children Able Lying Values Parent Childhood Adults Difficulty Convinced Bunch Tales Related Fairy Fairy Tale

Book:The uses of enchantment: the meaning and importance of fairy tales

Source: The uses of enchantment: the meaning and importance of fairy tales

“The child knows only that he engages in play because it is enjoyable. He isn't aware of his need to play--a need which has its source in the pressure of unsolved problems. Nor does he know that his pleasure in playing comes from a deep sense of well-being that is the direct result of feeling in control of things, in contrast to the rest of his life, which is managed by his parents or other adults.”

Knows Needs Wells Children Doe Play Feelings Problem Parent Pleasure Results Source Adults Direct Pressure Well Being Contrast Enjoyable Unsolved Problems

Author:Bruno Bettelheim

“To be a good enough parent one must be able to feel secure in one's parenthood, and one's relation to one's child...The security of the parent about being a parent will eventually become the source of the child's feeling secure about himself.”

Feels Children Enough Feelings Able Parent Security Source Relation Secure Good Enough Parenthood Being A Parent

Author:Bruno Bettelheim

“Most advice on child-rearing is sought in the hope that it will confirm our prior convictions. If the parent had wished to proceedin a certain way but was made insecure by opposing opinions of neighbors, friends, or relatives, then it gives him great comfort to find his ideas seconded by an expert.”

Ifs Way Giving Children Made Ideas Certain Parent Opinion Advice Comfort Conviction Neighbor Experts Insecure Opposing Child Rearing Neighbors Friends

Author:Bruno Bettelheim

“To be told that our child's behavior is "normal" offers little solace when our feelings are badly hurt, or when we worry that hisactions are harmful at the moment or may be injurious to his future. It does not help me as a parent nor lessen my worries when my child drives carelessly, even dangerously, if I am told that this is "normal" behavior for children of his age. I'd much prefer him to deviate from the norm and be a cautious driver!”

Ifs May Children Littles Doe Moments Helping Feelings Age Parent Hurt Worry Offers Behavior Normal Our Children My Children Help Me Drivers Norm Cautious Solace Deviate

Author:Bruno Bettelheim

“While criticism or fear of punishment may restrain us from doing wrong, it does not make us wish to do right. Disregarding this simple fact is the great error into which parents and educators fall when they rely on these negative means of correction. The only effective discipline is self-discipline, motivated by the inner desire to act meritoriously in order to do well in one's own eyes, according to one's own values, so that one may feel good about oneself may "have a good conscience.”

“What children learn from punishment is that might makes right. When they are old and strong enough, they will try to get their ownback; thus many children punish their parents by acting in ways distressing to them.”

Way Trying Children Enough Might Strong Parent Acting Punishment Strong Enough Distressing Might Makes Right

Author:Bruno Bettelheim

“The good enough parent, in addition to being convinced that whatever his child does, he does it because at that moment he is convinced this is the best he can do, will also ask himself: "What in the world would make me act as my child acts at this moment? And if I felt forced to act this way, what would make me feel better about it?”

Ifs World Way Feels Children Doe Enough Moments Asks Felt Parent Can Do Convinced My Children That Moment Good Enough Feel Better Make Me Feel Better

Author:Bruno Bettelheim

“Parents ought, through their own behavior and the values by which they live, to provide direction for their children. But they need to rid themselves of the idea that there are surefire methods which, when well applied, will produce certain predictable results. Whatever we do with and for our children ought to flow from our understanding of and our feelings for the particular situation and the relation we wish to exist between us and our child.”

Needs Wells Children Ideas Feelings Certain Values Wish Parent Understanding Results Situation Produce Particular Ought Behavior Flow Relation Our Children Method Predictable

Author:Bruno Bettelheim

“Philip Galanes makes his debut with a novel that is both heartbreaking and deftly comic, the story of a young man struggling with his most primitive desires--wanting and needing. It is a novel about the complex relationships between parents and children, a story of loss and of our unrelenting need for acknowledgment, to be seen as who we are. And in the end it is simply a love story for our time.”

“What is done for the children is doubly beneficial, since their success, obvious to everyone, educates the parents as well.”

Wells Children Done Success Parent Education Obvious Educate Beneficial

Author:Franz Grillparzer

“Love, it has been said, flows downward. The love of parents for their children has always been far more powerful than that of children for their parents; and who among the sons of men ever loved God with a thousandth part of the love which God has manifested to us?”

Men Children Has Beens Said Parent Powerful Son Flow Parents Love

Author:Augustus Hare

“I thought when I... made my first big mistakes in public that that was really going to be the end of me. My parents cried. My friends were desperate.”

Firsts Made Ends Bigs Parent Mistake Cry My Friends Desperate Cried Big Mistake

Author:Sharon Stone

“We mourn; we sorrow for our loved ones that go - our wives, our husbands, our children, our parents; we sorrow for them; and it is well and proper that we should moum for them and shed tears for the loss, for it is our loss; but it is their gain, for it is in the march of progress, advancement and development. It will be all right when our time comes, when we have finished our work and accomplished what the Lord required of us.”

Should Wells Children Soul Parent Loss Lord Wife Progress Tears Development Sorrow Husband Gains Our Children Finished Our Time Accomplished March Loved Ones Shed Advancement Mourn

Author:Francis M. Lyman

“During a visit to California, when a friend of my grandmother's told my parents that I must be deaf because I was not responding to sounds, my father was absolutely convinced that I was simply being stubborn.”

Father Parent Sound Convinced California Grandmother Stubborn My Grandmother Deaf Responding Deafness Being Stubborn Not Responding

Author:Marlee Matlin

“Becoming a parent erased many of my negative childhood feelings and filled them in with something new.”

Feelings Parent Childhood Becoming Negative Filled Something New Becoming A Parent

Author:Mariska Hargitay

“Boy lovers and the lesbians who have young lovers... are not child molesters. The child abusers are priests, teachers, therapists, cops and parents who force their staid morality onto the young people in their custody.”

People Children Christian Young Force Parent Religious Boys Teacher Lovers Morality Priests Child Abuse Cop Therapists Young Love Abusers Custody

Author:Patrick Califia

“It appears that some school officials, teachers, and parents have assumed that religious expression of any type is either inappropriate or forbidden altogether in public schools; however, nothing in the First Amendment converts our public schools into religion-free zones.”

Firsts School Christian Parent Religious Teacher Expression Type Officials Zone Amendments Forbidden Public School First Amendment Inappropriate

Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1995

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1995

“Parents have no right to impose their religion on their children... A Fundamentalist Protestant parent has no right to expect the state to support his own narrow conception of education.”

Children States Christian Parent Religious Support Conception Protestants Fundamentalist

Book:Toward a New Enlightenment: The Philosophy of Paul Kurtz

Source: Toward a New Enlightenment: The Philosophy of Paul Kurtz

“I'M HOPEFUL, because I know that while we still have race issues in America, we enjoy a much different normal than those of our parents and grandparents. I see it in my personal relationships with teammates, friends and mentors. And it's a beautiful thing.”

Source: Under Our Skin: Getting Real about Race. Getting Free from the Fears and Frustrations that Divide Us.

“There are many things children accept as "grown-up things" over when they have no control and for which they have no responsibility--for instance, weddings, having babies, buying houses, and driving cars. Parents who are separating really need to help their children put divorce on that grown-up list, so that children do not see themselves as the cause of their parents' decision to live apart.”

Needs Children Helping House Causes Parent Decision Responsibility Accepting Car Baby Divorce Lists Driving Instance Buying Separating Having A Baby Driving Cars Buying A House

Author:Fred Rogers

“Parents who expect change in themselves as well as in their children, who accept it and find in it the joy as well as the pains ofgrowth, are likely to be the happiest and most confident parents.”

Wells Children Pain Joy Parent Accepting

Author:Fred Rogers

“I don't believe that children can develop in a healthy way unless they feel that they have value apart from anything they own or any skill that they learn. They need to feel they enhance the life of someone else, that they are needed. Who, better than parents, can let them know that?”

Knows Way Needs Feels Believe Children Values Parent Needed Healthy Skills Don't Believe

Book:You Are Special: Words of Wisdom for All Ages from a Beloved Neighbor

Source: You Are Special: Words of Wisdom for All Ages from a Beloved Neighbor

“Love is at the root of all healthy discipline. The desire to be loved is a powerful motivation for children to behave in ways thatgive their parents pleasure rather than displeasure. it may even be our own long-ago fear of losing our parents' love that now sometimes makes us uneasy about setting and maintaining limits. We're afraid we'll lose the love of our children when we don't let them have their way.”

Source: You Are Special: Words of Wisdom for All Ages from a Beloved Neighbor

“And those handmade presents that children often bring home from school: They have so much value! The value is that the child put whatever he or she could into making them. The way we parents respond to the giving of such gifts is very important. To the child the gift is really self, and they want so much for their selves to be acceptable, to be loved.”

Way Want Giving Children Important Self Home School Values Parent Acceptable Handmade

Author:Fred Rogers

“The upshot of pervasive public belief in the uncontrollable sexuality of teenagers, and even of pre-teenagers, is that parents arehalf-hearted in their efforts to supervise and control their children, even when they are filled with anxiety as to their children's ability to cope with a full-fledged sexual relationship. "How can we buck the tide?" parents say helplessly, often without making quite certain that the ocean they see is a real one and not a mirage.”

Children Real Certain Belief Parent Ability Effort Anxiety Ocean Filled Sexuality Teenager Tides Hearted Bucks Uncontrollable Mirages Real Ones

Author:Marie Winn

“Families need families. Parents need to be parented. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles are back in fashion because they are necessary. Stresses on many families are out of proportion to anything two parents can handle.”

Needs Two Parent Family Fashion Stress Handle Proportion Uncles Grandparent Aunt Aunts And Uncles

Book:TOUCHPOINTS THE ESSENTIAL REFERENCE

Source: TOUCHPOINTS THE ESSENTIAL REFERENCE

“In England, I was quite struck to see how forward the girls are made--a child of 10 years old, will chat and keep you company, while her parents are busy or out etc.--with the ease of a woman of 26. But then, how does this education go on?--Not at all: it absolutely stops short.”

Years Children Doe Made Girl Parent Women Education Company Goes On England Busy Ease Etc

Author:Fanny Burney

“Although my parents have never been the kind to hint around about grandchildren, I can think of no better tribute to them than giving them some.... I can't help thinking that the cycle is not complete until I can introduce them to a child of their child. And I can think of no better comfort when they are gone than to know that something of them lives on, not only in me but in my children.”

Thinking Knows Giving Kind Children I Can Helping Parent Gone Generations Comfort My Children Cycles Introducing Grandchildren Hints Tribute

Author:Anne Cassidy

“Next-door a baker's apprentice with his wife, an employee in a printing-shop, she has inflammation of the ovaries. Wonder what those two get out of life? Well, first of all, they get each other, then last Sunday a vaudeville and a film, then this or that club meeting and a visit to his parents. Nothing else? Well now, don't drop dead, sir. Add to that nice weather, bad weather, country picnics, standing in front of the stove, eating breakfast and so on. And what more do you get, you, captain, general, jockey, whoever you are? Don't fool yourself.”

Parent Quotes

Related topics

Parent Quotes