Quotes about children
children diversity heritage
We want to raise our children so that they can take a sense of pleasure in both their own heritage and the diversity of others. Fred Rogers
children thinking discovery
One way to think about play, is as the process of finding new combinations for known things--combinations that may yield new formsof 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. Fred Rogers
children fighting perfect
Very early in our children's lives we will be forced to realize that the "perfect" untroubled life we'd like for them is just a fantasy. In daily living, tears and fights and doing things we don't want to do are all part of our human ways of developing into adults. Fred Rogers
children often-is dancing
More and more I've come to understand that listening is one of the most important things we can do for one another. Whether the other be an adult or a child, our engagement in listening to who that person is can often be our greatest gift. Whether that person is speaking or playing or dancing, building or singing or painting, if we care, we can listen. Fred Rogers
children believe needs
It is one of the paradoxes of parenting, and often a painful paradox, that even as our children need us for love and trust, they also need us for honest differing. It's not only over limits and rules...[but also] about what we represent in the way of culture, traditions, and values. We owe it to our children to let them know what we believe, and if they differ with us, we owe it to them to be honest adversaries, for it is through this honest confrontation that children can grow into adults who have a firm sense of their place in the sequence of the generations. Fred Rogers
children school home
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. Fred Rogers
children discipline healthy
It is our continuing love for our children that makes us want them to become all they can be, and their continuing love for us that helps them accept healthy discipline--from us and eventually from themselves. Fred Rogers
children motivation powerful
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. Fred Rogers
children believe skills
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? Fred Rogers
children independent people
Children who have learned to be comfortably dependent can become not only comfortably independent but also comfortable with having people depend on them. They can lean, stand, and be leaned upon, because they know what a good feeling it can be to feel needed. Fred Rogers
children feelings important
When our children see us expressing our emotions, they can learn that their own feelings are natural and permissible, can be expressed, and can be talked about. That's an important thing for our children to learn. Fred Rogers
children past thinking
The presence of a grandparent confirms that parents were, indeed, little once, too, and that people who are little can grow to be big, can become parents, and one day even have grandchildren of their own. So often we think of grandparents as belonging to the past; but in this important way, grandparents, for young children, belong to the future. Fred Rogers
children play differences
When we treat children's play as seriously as it deserves, we are helping them feel the joy that's to be found in the creative spirit. It's the things we play with and the people who help us play that make a great difference in our lives. Fred Rogers
children holiday suspense
I like to compare the holiday season with the way a child listens to a favorite story. The pleasure is in the familiar way the story begins, the anticipation of familiar turns it takes, the familiar moments of suspense, and the familiar climax and ending. Fred Rogers
children real believe
Most of us, I believe, admire strength. It's something we tend to respect in others, desire for ourselves, and wish for our children. Sometimes, though, I wonder if we confuse strength with other words—like 'aggression' and even 'violence'. Real strength is neither male nor female; but it is, quite simply, one of the finest characteristics that a human being can possess. Fred Rogers
children kids thinking
I think it's very important - no matter what you may do professionally - to keep alive some of the healthy interests of your youth. Children's play is not just kids' stuff. Children's play is rather the stuff of most future inventions. Fred Rogers
children caring unique
As different as we are from one another, as unique as each one of us is, we are much more the same than we are different. That may be the most essential message of all, as we help our children grow toward being caring, compassionate, and charitable adults. Fred Rogers
children thinking self
I think of discipline as the continual everyday process of helping a child learn self-discipline. Fred Rogers
children sometimes stills
The child is in me still and sometimes not so still. Fred Rogers
children parenting helping-others
The very best reason parents are so special . . . is because we are the holders of a priceless gift, a gift we received from countless generations we never knew, a gift that only we now possess and only we can give to our children. That unique gift, of course, is the gift of ourselves. Whatever we can do to give that gift, and to help others receive it, is worth the challenge of all our human endeavor. Fred Rogers
children believe parenting
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. Fred Rogers
children heart giving
My hunch is that if we allow ourselves to give who we really are to the children in our care, we will in some way inspire cartwheels in their hearts. Fred Rogers
children order practice
Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning...They have to play with what they know to be true in order to find out more, and then they can use what they learn in new forms of play. Fred Rogers
children hero responsibility
We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say "It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem." Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes. Fred Rogers
children parenting moon
When we choose to be parents, we accept another human being as part of ourselves, and a large part of our emotional selves will stay 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. Fred Rogers
children needs world
The world is not always a kind place. That's something all children learn for themselves, whether we want them to or not, but it's something they really need our help to understand. Fred Rogers
children educational dull
Educational bureaucracies dull a child's questing sensitivity. Frank Herbert
children father believe
The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of man's most unique capability. "I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be. Frank Herbert
children sleep relax
Jessica stopped beside him: ‘What delicious abandon in the sleep of a child.’ He spoke mechanically: ‘If only adults could relax like that.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘When do we lose it?’ He murmured… ‘We do indeed lose something,’ she said. Frank Herbert
children needs about-yourself
What are you, child, that you need time to learn about yourself? Frank Herbert
children teaching law
Most civilisation is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame. Frank Herbert
children love-you phrases
I don't use the phrase 'I love you' very often, but I say it every time I talk to my children. George Hamilton
children self discipline
I've developed a self-discipline since the time I was a child. George Hamilton