One of the important things to learn about parenting is that the more you worry about a child, the less the child will worry about... him- or herself....instead of worrying, watch with fascination and wonder as your child's life unfolds, and help the child take responsibility for his or her own life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
At a stage when young people want more than anything to be like everyone else, they find themselves the least alike. Everyone thei...r age is growing and changing, but each at his or her own pace.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It's a rare parent who can see his or her child clearly and objectively. At a school board meeting I attended . . . the only defin...ition of a gifted child on which everyone in the audience could agree was "mine."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The responsibilities of parenthood take on a more subtle cast during the middle years. . . . Our child is becoming a more consciou...s partner in his or her growth. . . . Each time our children take a new step, each time we allow them to move ahead to try something they've never tried before, we go through a period of doubt and questioning and ambivalent feelings until the new skill is mastered or the new rules are established. It is one of the most common experiences of parenthood, and it is also one of the most challenging.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Somewhere between the overly intrusive parent and the parent who forgets about us after we're out of the house is the ideally empa...thetic parent who recognizes the relativity of choice, the errors of his or her own way, and our need to find our own way and who can stay with us at a respectful distance while we do it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Aesthetically at odds, these two genres of mass humor form a Janus face of American culture. Stand-up is a surviving bastion of in...dividual expression. The comedian confronts the audience with his or her personality and wins celebration--the highest form of acceptance--or is scorned and rebuffed as a pitiable outsider. The heckler, the mood of the audience, or the temperature of the room cannot always be handled through quality control. Even when presented electronically, the jokes of a stand-up monologue cannot be underlined by canned laughter without the manipulation thoroughly exposing itself.... The sitcom, by contrast, is the technology of the assembly-line brought to art. Even when live audiences are used, their reactions are "sweetened" with carefully calculated titters, chortles, and guffaws. Large sums of investment capital must be assembled to produce a sitcom; all factors must be controlled by recognized experts.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
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 acce...pt 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.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The worst sin that can be committed against the artist is to take him at his word, to see in his work a fulfillment instead of an ...horizon.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The problem is simply this: no one can feel like CEO of his or her life in the presence of the people who toilet trained her and s...panked him when he was naughty. We may have become Masters of the Universe, accustomed to giving life and taking it away, casually ordering people into battle or out of their jobs . . . and yet we may still dirty our diapers at the sound of our mommy's whimper or our daddy's growl.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The fundamental steps of expansion that will open a person, over time, to the full flowering of his or her individuality are the s...ame for both genders. But men and women are rarely in the same place struggling with the same questions at the same age.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »