Best parent & self Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“If I had my child to raise all over again,I'd finger paint more, and point the finger less.I'd do less correcting, and more connecting.I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.I would care to know less, and know to care more.I'd take more hikes and fly more kites.I'd stop playing serious, and seriously play.I'd run through more fields, and gaze at more stars.I'd do more hugging, and less tugging.I would be firm less often, and affirm much more.I'd build self esteem first, and the house later.I'd teach less about the love of power, and more about the power of love.”

“Our parents don't know us... They can't know us. We hide ourselves from them. Once they knew everything about us and in order to escape them we keep out secrets, our private selves.”

Knows Self Order Parent Secret

Author:Ellen Sussman

“Parents and educators need to establish a culture in which security and clarity of expectations are balanced with the encouragement of playfulness, inquisitiveness and self reliance.”

Needs Self Culture Parent Teaching Security Expectations Encouragement Clarity Balanced Self Reliance Reliance Educator Playfulness

Book:Wise Up

Source: Wise Up

“He who, having lost his parents or being abandoned, by them without ,just cause, gives himself to a ,man , is called a son self given.”

Men Giving Self Lost Given Causes Parent Son Abandoned

Author:Guru Nanak

“It was love that motivated His self-emptying, that led Him to become a little lower than angels, to be subject to parents, to bow His head beneath the Baptist's hands, to endure the weakness of the flesh, and to submit to death even upon the cross”

Littles Self Hands Parent Subjects Weakness Angel Crosses Endure Flesh Motivated Bows Submit Sacraments Baptists

Author:Bernard of Clairvaux

“Forgiveness multiplies and melts rigid postures. Try again and again with self forgiveness. Be the kind parent to yourself you may not have had.”

Trying Kind May Self Parent Again And Again Negativity Try Again Posture Self Forgiveness

Author:Sark

“I think the biggest difference is that I've noticed Western parents seem much more concerned about their children's psyches, their self-esteem, whereas tough immigrant parents assume strength rather than fragility in their children and therefore behave completely differently.”

Thinking Children Self Seems Parent Differences Self Esteem Tough Concerned Assuming Western Esteem Behave Immigrants Fragility Psych Immigrant Parents

Author:Amy Chua

“Where love exists with self-respect and joy, where a fine environment is provided for the child, where the parents live under conditions that neither stunt the imagination nor let it run to uncontrolled fantasy, there you have the family that modern men are seeking to create.”

Men Children Self Running Joy Parent Imagination Fantasy Environment Modern Conditions Fine Seeking Self Respect Modern Man

Book:Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest

Source: Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest

“Go little book, thy self present, As child whose parent is unkent: To him that is the president Of noblesse and of chivalry, And if that Envy bark at thee, As sure it will, for succour flee.”

Ifs Children Littles Book Self Parent President Envy Thee Bark Chivalry

Author:Edmund Spenser

“These are thy glorious works Parent of Good, Almighty, thine this universal Frame, Thus wondrous fair; thy self how wondrous then! Unspeakable, who sitst above these Heavens To us invisible or dimly seen In these thy lowest works, yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought, and Power Divine: Speak ye who best can tell, ye Sons of light, Angels, for ye behold him, and with songs And choral symphonies, Day without Night, Circle his Throne rejoicing, ye in Heav'n, On Earth join all ye Creatures to extoll Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.”

“The relations between parents and children are certainly not only those of constraint. There is spontaneous mutual affection, which from the first prompts the child to acts of generosity and even of self-sacrifice, to very touching demonstrations which are in no way prescribed. And here no doubt is the starting point for that morality of good which we shall see developing alongside of the morality of right or duty, and which in some persons completely replaces it.”

Source: The Moral Judgement of the Child

“I have a rule of thumb now and that's that somebody [she dates] has to have been married and they have to have had kids. Everything boils down to perspective. If your potential mate does not have the same perspective that you do then you're going to be lost.... If somebody has never been married, they don't know compromise ... [and] if they don't have children, they don't know the absolute self-sacrifice it takes and what it means to be a parent.”

Ifs Knows Mean Children Doe Has Beens Self Kids Lost Parent Sacrifice Perspective Married Absolutes Compromise Mates Thumbs Self Sacrifice

Author:Eva LaRue

“Our parents, our tribesman, our authority figures, clearly expect us to be bad or anti-social or greedy or selfish or dirty or destructive or self-destructive. Our social nature is such that we tend to meet the expectations of our elders. Whenever this reversal took place and our elders stopped expecting us to be social and expected us to be anti-social, just to put it in gross terms, that's when the real fall took place. And we're paying for it dearly.”

Real Self Fall Social Parent Term Figures Authority Expectations Expected Selfish Dirty Destructive Expecting Greedy Gross Elders Self Destructive Reversal Anti Social Authority Figures

Author:Jean Liedloff

“The clergy profession is fundamentally self-defeating. Its stated purpose is to nurture spiritual maturity in the church - a valuable goal. In actuality, however; it accomplishes the opposite by nurturing a permanent dependence of the laity on the clergy. Clergy become to their congregations like parents whose children never grow up, like therapists whose clients never become healed, like teachers whose students never graduate.”

“Self-acceptance begins in infancy, with the influence of your parents and siblings and other important people. Your own level of self-acceptance is determined largely by how well you feel you are accepted by the important people in your life. Your attitude toward yourself is determined largely by the attitudes that you think other people have toward you. When you believe that other people think highly of you, your level of self-acceptance and self-esteem goes straight up. The best way to build a healthy personality involves understanding yourself and your feelings.”

“In a world in which we are exposed to more information, more options, more philosophies, more perspectives than ever before, in which we must choose the values by which we will live (rather than unquestioningly follow some tradition for no better reason than that our own parents did), we need to be willing to stand on our own judgment and trust our own intelligence-to look at the world through our own eyes-to chart our course and think through how to achieve the future we want, to commit ourselves to continuous questioning and learning-to be, in a word, self-responsible.”

Source: Nathaniel Brandens Self-Esteem Every Day: Reflections on Self-Esteem and Spirituality

“Parents are untamed, excessive, potentially troublesome creatures; charming to be with for a time, in the main they must lead their own lives, independent and self-employed, with companions of their own age and selection.”

Self Age Parent Creatures Independent Companion Charming Employed Selection Troublesome Untamed

Author:Rose Macaulay

“If there's a single message passed down from each generation of American parents to their children, it is a two-word line: Better Yourself. And if there's a temple of self-betterment in each town, it is the local school. We have worshipped there for some time.”

Ifs Children Two Self School Parent Lines Education Generations Messages Towns Locals Temples Betterment Better Yourself

Book:At Large

Source: At Large

“If your parents are billionaires, that might actually be an obstacle to your own happiness and self-development. If you go to Oxford or Harvard, that might actually thwart your desire to graduate with a science or math degree.”

Ifs Self Might Desire Parent Development Degrees Obstacles Math Graduates Self Development Harvard Billionaire Oxford

Author:Malcolm Gladwell

“A parent does not do everything for their kid. A parent that does everything for their kid produces a kid with no self-confidence. If our parents fixed everything for us and did not allow us to do anything on our own, or intervened every single time, we would all grow up to be completely dependent. The reason we grow up to be healthy adults is because our parents played this game of giving us responsibility, disciplining us when necessary, letting us try, letting us fail.”

Ifs Giving Trying Doe Self Reason Kids Games Grows Parent Responsibility Growing Up Failing Produce Healthy Adults Self Confidence Fixed Dependent

Author:Simon Sinek

“The free expression of resentment against one's parents represents a great opportunity. It provides access to one's true self, reactivates numbed feelings, opens the way for mourning and - with luck - reconciliation.”

Way Self Feelings Opportunity Parent Family Expression Luck Access Mourning Resentment True Self Reconciliation Great Opportunity Free Expression

Author:Alice Miller

“I remember walking out in front of that crowd, all the parents faces and the applause, and folding my little self in half and thinking, I could get used to this. And I just never stopped.”

Thinking Littles Self Remember Faces Used Parent Half Fronts Walking Crowds Applause Folding Walking Out

Author:Dallas Roberts

“My parents raised me to not ever look at race or color, so it doesn't have a big part in my self-identity.”

Looks Self Bigs Parent Race Identity Color Raised Self Identity

Author:Robert Griffin III

“If we parents accept that problems are an essential part of life's challenges, rather than reacting to every problem as if something has gone wrong with the universe that's supposed to be perfect, we can demonstrate serenity and confidence in problem solving for our kids.By telling them that we know they have a problem and we know they can solve it, we can pass on a realistic attitude as well as empower our children with self-confidence and a sense of their own worth.”

“No matter what circumstances, it's hard to be a parent and maintain a sense of self and identity in the world.”

World Self Matter Hard Parent Identity Circumstances No Matter What Sense Of Self

Author:Anne Lamott

“It's intrusive for grandparents to think they're in charge. It's manipulative. Also, it's self-destructive, since if the parents have to resist you, you won't get your mitts on the kid as often.”

Ifs Thinking Self Kids Parent Destructive Grandparent Self Destructive Manipulative

Author:Anne Lamott

“There's a word like overprotective to describe some parents, but no word that means the opposite. What word do you use to describe parents who don't protect enough? Underprotective? Neglectful? Self-involved? Lame? All of the above.”

Mean Self Enough Use Parent Involved Protect Opposites Lame Overprotective

Book:The Wonder eOmni Collection: Wonder, Auggie & Me, 365 Days of Wonder

Source: The Wonder eOmni Collection: Wonder, Auggie & Me, 365 Days of Wonder

“Of what is real I say, Is it the old, the roseate parent or The bride come jingling, kissed and cupped, or else The spirit and all ensigns of the self?”

Real Self Reality Spirit Parent Realism Brides

Book:The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens

Source: The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens

“Maybe someday it will seem quaint that, during a time of plague, some of the parents of the 1990s wanted to deny their children protection so that they could safeguard their own self- image. Or maybe we'll just seem like a bunch of lunatics.”

Children Self Seems Wanted Parent Deny Protection Aids Bunch Someday Plague Respectability Quaint Maybe Someday

Author:Anna Quindlen

“Though they themselves might be as surprised as their parents and teachers to hear it said, adolescents--these poignantly thin- skinned and vulnerable, passionate and impulsive, starkly sexual and monstrously self-absorbed creatures--are, in fact, avid seekers of moral authenticity. They wish above all to achieve some realistic power over the real world in which they live while at the same time remaining true to their values and ideals.”

“Adolescents' immature thinking makes it difficult for them to process the divorce. They tend to see things in black-and-white terms and have trouble putting events into perspective. They are absolute in their judgments and expect perfection in parents. They are likely to be self-conscious about their parent's failures and critical of their every move. They have the expectations that parents will keep them safe and happy and are shocked by the broken covenant. Adolescents are unforgiving.”

Source: Reviving Ophelia

“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.”

“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

“Our goal as a parent is to give life to our children's learning--to instruct, to teach, to help them develop self-discipline--an ordering of the self from the inside, not imposition from the outside. Any technique that does not give life to a child's learning and leave a child's dignity intact cannot be called discipline--it is punishment, no matter what language it is clothed in.”

Giving Children Doe Self Matter Helping Language Parent Goal Teach Discipline Dignity Our Children No Matter What Technique Punishment Self Discipline Imposition

Author:Barbara Coloroso

“As blacks, we need not be afraid that encouraging moral development, a conscience and guilt will prevent social action. Black children without the ability to feel a normal amount of guilt will victimize their parents, relatives and community first. They are unlikely to be involved in social action to improve the black community. Their self-centered personalities will cause them to look out for themselves without concern for others, black or white.”

“All parents want their offspring to be exemplars of virtue and achievement and happiness. But most of all, we want desperately for you to be safe - safe from disease and violence and self-destruction.”

Want Self Parent Virtue Violence Safe Disease Achievement Destruction Offspring Self Destruction

Author:Estelle Ramey

“Preoccupied with her self, the adolescent sees enormous changes, whereas the parent sees the child she knew all along. For the parent, new developments are superficial and evanescent. For the adolescent, they are thrilling and profound.”

Children Self Parent Development Profound Enormous Superficial Thrilling

Author:Terri E Apter

“Recognizing that family self-sufficiency is a false myth, we also need to acknowledge that all today's families need help in raising children. The problem is not so much to reeducate parents but to make available the help they need and to give them enough power so that they can be effective advocates with and coordinators of the other forces that are bringing up their children.”

Needs Giving Children Self Enough Helping Problem Today Force Parent Available Myth Acknowledge Recognizing Raising Children Need Help Self Sufficiency Sufficiency Coordinator

Author:Kenneth Keniston

“One current reaction to change in families, for example, is the proposal for more "education for parenthood," on the theory that this training will not only teach specific skills such as how to change diapers or how to play responsively with toddlers, but will raise parents' self-confidence at the same time. The proposed cure, in short, is to reform and educate the people with the problem.”

People Self Play Problem Parent Teach Example Theory Skills Training Raises Currents Self Confidence Reactions Cures Reform Parenthood Educate Proposal Diapers Toddler

Author:Kenneth Keniston

“Parents still have primary responsibility for raising children, but they must have the power to do so in ways consistent with their children's needs and their own values.... We must address ourselves less to the criticism and reform of parents themselves than to the criticism and reform of the institutions that sap their self-esteem and power.”

Way Needs Children Stills Self Values Parent Responsibility Self Esteem Criticism Institutions Esteem Reform Primaries Addresses Consistent Raising Children Sap

Book:All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

Source: All Our Children: The American Family Under Pressure

“A two-year-old can be taught to curb his aggressions completely if the parents employ strong enough methods, but the achievement of such control at an early age may be bought at a price which few parents today would be willing to pay. The slow education for control demands much more parental time and patience at the beginning, but the child who learns control in this way will be the child who acquires healthy self-discipline later.”

Source: The Magic Years: Understanding and Handling the Problems of Early Childhood

“The parent who loves his child dearly but asks for nothing in return might qualify as a saint, but he will not qualify as a parent. For a child who can claim love without meeting any of the obligations of love will be a self-centered child and many such children have grown up in our time to become petulant lovers and sullen marriage partners because the promise of unconditional love has not been fulfilled.”

Source: The Magic Years: Understanding and Handling the Problems of Early Childhood

“God's love is so perfect that He lovingly requires us to obey His commandments because He knows that only through obedience to His laws can we become perfect, as He is. For this reason, God's anger and His wrath are not a contradiction of His love but an evidence of His love. Every parent knows that you can love a child totally and completely while still being creatively angry and disappointed at that child's self-defeating behavior.”

“The meaning of self-esteem is to feel lovable and capable. As parents, we must love our children unconditionally and give them a sense of being nurtured. That's the lovable part. Then, we must provide structure - rules, boundaries, daily or weekly household tasks that give them a sense they are making a contribution. That's what helps kids grow up feeling capable.”

Giving Feels Children Self Helping Feelings Kids Grows Parent Growing Up Self Esteem Capable Tasks Our Children Structure Boundaries Esteem Contribution Household Lovable Love Our Children

Author:Jack Canfield

“Then, finally, the third year, begging the parents, I got the Superman Halloween costume. Cardboard box, self-made top, mask included. Remember the rubber band on the back of that mask? That was a quality item there, wasn't it? That was good for about 10 seconds before it snapped out of that cheap little staple they put it in there with.”

Years Littles Made Self Remember Parent Quality Band Thirds Boxes Mask Seconds Halloween Costumes Items Begging Rubber Self Made Staples Rubber Bands Cardboard Boxes Halloween Costume

Author:Jerry Seinfeld

“My parents always put more of an emphasis on who I was as opposed to what I achieved. They were never like, "You won that! You did this!" It was all about, "You've got a good heart. You're a good friend. You're a good daughter." So that other stuff in no way defines my sense of self.”

Way Heart Self Stuff Parent Like You Daughter Good Friend Emphasis Sense Of Self Good Heart

Author:Emma Stone

“A sense of self has to be sought in the parade of images and products; and this culture becomes the main determinant upon morality, beliefs, and purpose, usurping more and more territory that formerly belonged to parents, teachers, community, priests, and politics alike.”

Self Purpose Culture Belief Parent Community Teacher Products Morality Priests Territory Consumerism Sense Of Self Parades Overconsumption

Book:What Went Wrong?: Why Hasn't Having More Made People Happier?

Source: What Went Wrong?: Why Hasn't Having More Made People Happier?

“After I graduated from high school, one of the former workers on our farm asked if I would be willing to join him in selling Fuller brushes through the summer. It seemed like a perfect way to make some money for college. And being away from my parents and learning to make my own way gave me self confidence.”

Ifs Way Self Would Be School Parent My Own Perfect College Willing Summer High School Workers Self Confidence Selling Former Farms Brushes

Author:Billy Graham

“It is important that parents pour out their love self-sacrificially for their children, which includes practicing what they preach, i.e. living in the love of Christ and seeking to emulate His example in their daily lives.”

Children Important Self Parent Christ Example Self Love Seeking Daily Life Emulate

Author:Joseph Pearce

Parent Quotes

Related topics

Parent Quotes