There is a universal truth that I have found in my work. Everybody longs to be loved. And the greatest thing we can do is let some...body know that they are loved and capable of loving.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Love is at the root of all healthy discipline. The desire to be loved is a powerful motivation for children to behave in ways that... give 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.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When we choose to be parents, we accept another human being as part of ourselves, and a large part of our emotional selves will st...ay with that person as long as we live. From that time on, there will be another person on this earth whose orbit around us will affect us as surely as the moon affects the tides, and affect us in some ways more deeply than anyone else can. Our children are extensions of ourselves in ways our parents are not, nor our brothers and sisters, nor our spouses.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When our children see us expressing our emotions, they can learn that their own feelings are natural and permissible, can be expre...ssed, and can be talked about. That's an important thing for our children to learn.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When we leave our child in nursery school for the first time, it won't be just our child's feelings about separation that we will ...have to cope with, but our own feelings as well--from our present and from our past, parents are extra vulnerable to new tremors from old earthquakes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
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 a...ny 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?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Parents find many different ways to work their way through the assertiveness of their two-year-olds, but seeing that assertiveness... as positive energy being directed toward growth as a competent individual may open up some new possibilities.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And those handmade presents that children often bring home from school: They have so much value! The value is that the child put w...hatever 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.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Call them rules or call them limits, good ones, I believe, have this in common: They serve reasonable purposes; they are practical... and within a child's capability; they are consistent; and they are an expression of loving concern.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One way to think about play, is as the process of finding new combinations for known things--combinations that may yield new forms... of expression, new inventions, new discoveries, and new solutions....It's exactly what children's play seems to be about and explains why so many people have come to think that children's play is so important a part of childhood--and beyond.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »