Parenting Quotes - Page 25

It is your existential responsibility to raise your child as a human being above everything else – catholic, muslim, jew, asian, caucasian or whatever.

Do not allow your children to celebrate the days on which unbelief and superstition are being catered to. They are admittedly inclined to want this because they see that the children of Roman Catholic parents observe those days. Do not let them attend carnivals, observe Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras), see Santa Claus, or observe Twelfth Night, because they are all remnants of an idolatrous papacy. You must not keep your children out of school or from work on those days nor let them play outside or join in the amusement. The Lord has said, “After the doings of the land of Egypt, where you lived, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, where I bring you, you shall not do: neither shall you walk in their ordinances” (Lev. 18:3). The Lord will punish the Reformed on account of the days of Baal (Hosea 2:12-13), and he also observes what the children do on the occasion of such idolatry (Jer. 17:18). Therefore, do not let your children receive presents on Santa Claus day, nor let them draw tickets in a raffle and such things. Pick other days on which to give them the things that amuse them, and because the days of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost have the same character, Reformed people must keep their children away from these so-called holy days and feast days.

We all have the best laid plans for our children, and they go and ruin it all by growing up any way they want to. What the hell was it all for, then? (Real Life and Liars)

My greatest hope is to be a mother who loves Jesus with a deep and abiding affection that joyfully overflows to my children.

He was afraid to pick up the baby. If he touched it, it might bond with him or something. Or he might leave fingerprints all over it.

Among the most sacred gifts you can give your child is the gift of health. This gift is best given by example." Dr. Rand Olson

Oh, go ahead and giggle," Lady Danbury sighed. "I've found that the only way to avoid parental frustration is to view him as a source of amusement.

She became a frame for the picture that was her son and daughter.

Ever seen a two-year-old tattering around a garden? There might be a poison ivy, or rose bushes or hawthorne around the edges. There might be spades or secateurs lying on the lawn. The kid doesn't care. He just wants to play with all those brightly coloured things he sees. To him, the world is a safe place. And you might want to rush out and cut back all those sharp spiky plants so they can't hurt him, and you might want to clear away all those dangerous tools just in case, he picks them up and cut himself on them, but you know you shouldn't because if you keep doing that then he either will grow up thinking the can never hurt him, or he might go the other way, and think that everything is dangerous, and he should never go far from your side. So you just watch. And wait. And if he does get rush from the poison ivy or if he does cut his fingers off with the secateurs, then you get him to the hospital as quickly as you can, in the reasonably sure knowledge the he'll never make the same mistake again.

I would have given anything to keep her little. They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them.Brian Fitzgerald, talking about his children.

If all we ever offer is blanket praise without any meaning behind it, kids will always seek approval because they'll never feel satisfied. If we offer genuine encouragement for their accomplishments, they won't need our approval; they'll approve of themselves.

Ha! Kids! You have no idea what you put your parents through, either. Wait till you have your own, you'll see. That's when you'll know what it really feels like." .. "What what feels like?"..."Love," said Angela.

Fathers are ironic, they want democracy in their country but dictatorship in their home.

Ironically, to my children, bedtime is a punishment that violates their basic rights as human beings. Once the lights are out, you can expect at least an hour of inmates clanging their tin cups on the cell bars.

Your child is least interested in what the report card says. All that matters to him / her is what you say on seeing the report card.

In a brain scan, relational pain—that caused by isolation during punishment—can look the same as physical abuse. Is alone in the corner the best place for your child?

Momma always said when Randy got an idea in his head it was more likely to come attached to a foot in his ass than a check in the bank.

Most of you will marry and have children. They will become the source of your greatest pride and happiness. I hope so. Rear them in love. You don’t have to kick them around. You don’t have to get angry with them. You just have to love them. If they make mistakes, forgive them and help them to avoid a repetition. But let them see in you their truest and best friend, their constant support.

Now and again, one could detect in a childless woman of a certain age the various characteristics of all the children she had never issued. Her body was haunted by the ghost of souls who hadn't lived yet. Premature ghosts. Half-ghosts. X's without Y's. Y's without X's. They applied at her womb and were denied, but, meant for her and no one else, they wouldn't go away. Like tiny ectoplasmic gophers, they hunkered in her tear ducts. They shone through her sighs. Often to her chagrin, they would soften the voice she used in the marketplace. When she spilled wine, it was their playful antics that jostled the glass. They called out her name in the bath or when she passed real children in the street. The spirit babies were everywhere her companions, and everywhere they left her lonesome - yet they no more bore her resentment than a seed resents uneaten fruit. Like pet gnats, like phosphorescence, like sighs on a string, they would follow her into eternity.

Maggie had learned a long time ago that each day with a child was filled with two kinds of battles: those that won the war, and those that did not.

Maybe being a good parent is about improvisation and spontaneity. Maybe it's about genuinely being with your kid. Sometimes though, it is also about being able to catch sick in yours hands.

Do your kids see your kindness or are you always telling them. "NO?

They (parents) want life to unfold according to what they believe. Most people want that. The last thing they want and need, is somebody (let alone their own child) telling them that their beliefs about life are bullshit / full of holes/ severely flawed.

Since we have had this baby with us, I have never again wondering why I never got pregnant. There is no doubt in my mind that God, in His wonderful way, was saving us to be the parents of this wonderful little boy.

Sometimes, kids want you to hurt the way they hurt.

No man wants his daughter to be the kind of girl whom he liked in high school.

The path of development is a journey of discovery that is clear only in retrospect, and it’s rarely a straight line.

Historians have shown that "parents in the Middle Ages worried about their kids no less than we worry about ours today," and by the nineteenth century there is evidence of bars being placed on windows to protect toddlers from falling out as well as "leading strings so that young children wouldn't wander off during walks.

It’s entirely on our children to build their best futures. Not on us, parents. And we should be imprinting this message on our children’s brains from as early as possible.

She has to have four arms, four legs, four eyes, two hearts, and double the love. There is nothing “single” about a single mom.

It matters to ourselves, of course, but it matters terribly to other people. Moral failure or spiritual failure or whatever you call it, makes such a vicious circle... It seems as if when we love people and they fall short, we retaliate by falling shorter ourselves. Children are like that. Adults have a fearful responsibility. When they fail to live up to what children expect of them, the children give up themselves. So each generation keeps failing the next.

A person who has proper guidance from his or her early childhood can himself or herself expanding his or her horizons living in a well established environment with great level of knowledge and being financially stable.

The most important gift you can give your children is the importance of standing up to injustice. Children will remember moments spent with you. However, it isn't togetherness that creates humane parents and righteous kids. It is the example of integrity that a parent sets and the on going lessons they teach about compassion toward others throughout their lives. A good father or mother teaches their children that cruelty is not something you cause or ignore, rather it is the moment you suit up for war.

I wasn’t anything special as a father. But I loved them and they knew it.

I had thought a good mother would not elicit such comments, but now I see that a good mother is required to somehow absorb all this ugliness and find a way to fall back in love with her child the next day.

Money-it can buy your kids anything, but it cannot teach them love, respect, and the true value of living life without things.

Teach them what you love to do in life. It really doesn't matter what it is. It never does. Just show them how important a passion is . . .

Do you not realize that your kids are going to make mistakes, and a lot of them? Do you not realize the damage you do when you push your son’s nose into his mishaps or make your daughter feel worthless because she bumped or spilled something? Do you have any idea how easy it is to make your child feel abject? It’s as simple as letting out the words, “why would you do that!?” or “how many times have I told you…

Why is every mom's concern about sex? There are more important things in life, like school, careers, poetry, books, ice cream, or learning how to make the perfect chocolate cake. It's so damn frustrating.

Gay people getting married is not a threat to the institution of marriage. You know what's a threat to the institution of marriage? Infidelity is! Hate is! Unforgiveness is! Apathy is! Coldheartedness is! Fear is! And you know what's a threat to the kids? It’s not having gay parents! Most gay kids have straight parents! And plenty of gay parents raise respectable, straight kids! The threat to children isn't their parents being gay; the threat to children is their parents not loving one another! Not caring for one another! Not being crazy about each other! Domestic violence is a threat to children. Stupidity is a threat to children. A swimming pool in the backyard with no supervision is a threat to children!

To be a ninja Mom you have to be cool with yourself.

And the end of this paradox is that only when the child is thus free can he have the proper attachment to his parents; only when we allow his independence can he then freely offer us love and respect, without conflict and without resentment. It is the hardest lesson to learn that the goal of parenthood is not to reign forever but to abdicate gracefully at the right time.

One reason we have children I think is to learn that parts of ourselves we had given up for dead are merely dormant and that the old joys can re emerge fresh and new and in a completely different form.

The day you accept your parents the way they are, God starts opening doors of success for you, one after the other!

Why shall we talk?To depend on the conversation style as a primary language of effectiveness on the other person, in a way that respects the feelings without hurting the human soul dignity, or humiliating it, or belittling it.

The guys who fear becoming fathers don't understand that fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man. The end product of child raising is not the child, but the parent.

They did the best they could with the knowledge they had." How the fuck did people know that? They didn't have no way of knowing that. Even if they did the best they could with the knowledge they had, why the hell didn't they have better knowledge? I mean, then nobody should ever fail an exam because everyone who Wright's an exam is doing the best they can with the knowledge they have. If I don't study for geography exam then I flunk out. Can I then say wait, just like the people who get a "A" I was doing the best I could with the knowledge I had. That's not an excuse for a 6 year old with a goddamn spelling B. How the hell is it an excuse for parents in full control of a developing human mind?If you don't study for the exam you fucking fail and if you don't study for parenting you fucking fail. You don't get to say that you did the best you could with the knowledge you had. Fuck that. That's a bullshit cop-out. You goddamn will study. It's a little more important raising a child than passing a spelling B when you're 6 goddamn years old. You goddamn will study and if you don't study youre more culpable.

So much time and energy, so much love and learning had gone into those long years of motherhood, and now, between a morning and a morning—or so it felt—they were over. It seemed that mothers of daughters had a more extended role but she knew that she was lucky to be allowed any part in her boys' lives and tried hard to be grateful and undemanding. It wasn't always easy, when she loved them so much, to practice detachment.... Odd that the last of the parenting skills should be the most painful: the final act of letting go.

I haven’t been to a temple in years, never been forced. My folks always said, marry a nice human being, religion doesn’t matter. They said your god is inside you! Don’t you forget that. Krishna, Jesus, Allah, are all one. Follow vegetarianism as far as you can, but you can choose your own diet, doesn’t matter. Believe in god, but for you and not because the world asks you to. Forgive and forget to be at peace. Do not believe in revenge, believe in karma!!

I think we owe it to our children to share our wisdom. If we share our wisdom for the purpose of changing our children, then that’s hitting them over the head with a hammer or shoving something down their throats. If the wisdom turns into advice, that’s selfish. But if we simply share ourselves and let our children know our hearts, then it’s a gift. And I think it’s a gift we’re responsible for giving them.

The best parenting strives to educate their children in HOW TO LIVE LIFE -- competitive, compassionate, void of greed, & striving to make a better world.

Here's a tip for new parents: Start lowering those expectations early, it's going to pay off later.

Being a good parent is not an obligation, it is a choice. Plenty of people fall short in the parent category and quite a few refuse to accept it. You will do a much better job if you understand that taking care of your children is a choice not an obligation.

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

The beauty of problem-solving is that, unlike punishment, it offers endless possibilities. If you're committed to punishment and your child continues to misbehave, all you can do is punish more severely. You might hit him harder or take away more privileges, but chances are you won't get any closer to your goal of having a cooperative child. And you'll create a lot of ill will in the process. With problem-solving, you can always go back and brainstorm some more. When you put your heads together, you're bound to come up with something that will work for both of you.

I used to believe my father about everything but then I had children myself & now I see how much stuff you make up just to keep yourself from going crazy.

Even if i'm setting myself up for failure, I think it's worth trying to be a mother who delights in who her children are, in their knock-knock jokes and earnest questions. A mother who spends less time obseessing about what will happen, or what has happened, and more time reveling in what is. A mother who doesn't fret over failings and slights, who realizes her worries and anxieties are just thoughts, the continuous chattering and judgement of a too busy mind. A mother who doesn't worry so much about being bad or good but just recognizes that she's both, and neither. A mother who does her best, and for whom that is good enough, even if, in the end, her best turns out to be, simply, not bad.

I know he's a good baby... but the challenge is to raise him into a good boy, then a good man.

The most precious gift that you can give to the child is unconditional love and acceptance, which allows the child to discover his own inner being, his authentic self, his freedom to be himself.

We ignore the emotional needs of young children at our peril.