Parenting Quotes

Be a full person. Motherhood is a glorious gift, but do not define yourself solely by motherhood. Be a full person. Your child will benefit from that.

~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

If the justification for controlling women's bodies were about women themselves, then it would be understandable. If, for example, the reason was 'women should not wear short skirts because they can get cancer if they do.' Instead the reason is not about women, but about men. Women must be 'covered up' to protect men. I find this deeply dehumanizing because it reduces women to mere props used to manage the appetites of men.

~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A father is as much a verb as a mother.

~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

If you as parents cut corners, your children will too. If you lie, they will too. If you spend all your money on yourselves and tithe no portion of it for charities, colleges, churches, synagogues, and civic causes, your children won't either. And if parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out.

~ Marian Wright Edelman

We begin to understand that to coparent is to one day look up and notice that you are on a roller coaster with another human being. You are in the same car, strapped down side by side and you can never, ever get off. There will never be another moment in your lives when your hearts don't rise and fall together, when your minds don't race and panic together, when your stomachs don't churn in tandem, when you stop seeing huge hills emerge in the distance and simultaneously grab the side of the car and hold on tight. No one except for the one strapped down beside you will ever understand the particular thrills and terrors of your ride.

~ Glennon Doyle Melton

Who you are is enough for me. I look at you and all I see, is the champion I knew you would be.

~ Brittney Brady

While our life remains more chaotic than not, we continue to land on our blistered feet, drag each other out of the quicksand, beg for forgiveness as we wander out of the doghouse, and dig for the humor beneath our grief. So our family, four-pawed members included, continues to bound forward celebrating our canine connection and sharing hope with all who need healing.

~ Donnie Kanter Winokur

Don't ever let another man call your child daddy.

~ Julian Quintero

There’s nothing wrong with an adult being a child, except whining like one.

~ Ben Tolosa

Oh, man, ‘the nursery,’ ” Dominic said, “what a hell-hole. If I had kids I’d give them the nicest room in the house.”“You do have kids,” his kid said.“Oh, yeah, well, right, you know what I mean.

~ Kate Atkinson

Talk to her about sex, and start early. It will probably be a bit awkward, but it is necessary.

~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Are You a Parent or a Bully? Mentally and physically abusing your children is NOT okay. Real parenting does NOT consist of bullying your children, belittling your children, manipulating your children, beating your children, or cursing at your children. Children are a blessing! Many women can’t get pregnant and/or carry to term. Think about that! Parenting should be taken seriously. Children need LOVE, support, and guidance, NOT a bully! Children shouldn’t fear their parents. It’s important to create healthy relationships with your children, seriously.

~ Stephanie Lahart

Console the failure, but nurture the hunger.

~ Bryan Cranston

This is what parenting involved: hard decisions. She was his mother, she reminded herself. He didn't have to like her.

~ Paula Daly

For the first time he considers the full emotional dimensions of the day. His life is changing but his parent’s lives are changing too. Like a habitat, abruptly deprived of a major species, the household will be wrenched into realignment by his departure. Like all young people, he has no idea who his parents really are. For 18 years he has experienced their existence only in so far as it is related to his own needs. Suddenly his mind is full of questions. What do they talk about when he's not around? What secrets do they hold from each other? What aspirations have been left to languish? What private grievances held in check by the shared project of child rearing will now in his absence, lurch into the light?

~ Justin Cronin

One day ask your daughter the kind of mother she wants to be! One day ask your son the kind of father he wants to be! One day ask yourself the kind of parent you have been! And one day, ask yourself how you have run the race of life through the good and the bad times with the baton of life in your hands!

~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

My father did not teach me how to live. He lived and let me watch him do it.

~ Clarence Kelland

Having kids is not the same as being a parent.

~ Frank Sonnenberg

As for logical consequences, the logic is highly debatable. If you continually arrive late for my workshop, despite my warning that lateness is unacceptable, I may find it logical to lock you out of my classroom. Or perhaps it would be more logical to keep you locked in after class for the same number of minutes you were late. Or maybe my logic demands that you miss out on the snacks. As you may be starting to suspect, these are not true exercises in logic. They're really more of a free association, where we try to think of a way to make the wrongdoer suffer. We hope that the suffering will motivate the offender to do better in the future.

~ Joanna Faber

Study after study has found that young children who are not constantly ordered around are much more likely to cooperate with simple requests from a parent—for example, cleaning up toys when asked—than children who are micromanaged and controlled much of the time.

~ Joanna Faber

If your child can't resist throwing gravel in the park, in spite of your efforts to offer tempting alternatives, you can say, I'm taking you home now. I don't want anyone to get hit by a rock, even a little one. If your child wants to help put pancake batter in the pan, but despite friendly reminders you can't convince him not to jump around at the stove, you can say, I can't cook with you now. I'm too worried about burns.” If your child refuses to get in his carseat, I can see the seat belt is uncomfortable. You feel freer without it. I can't take you to your friend's house without the belt buckled. Or, I don't want to be late for work. I'm buckling you in. I know how much you hate it!

~ Joanna Faber

Instead of feeling an urge to fix the problem or make amends, punishment prompts a child to think selfishly. What television shows will she be forced to miss? What dessert will she have to give up? She’s likely to be filled with resentment instead of remorse.

~ Joanna Faber

When you have a problem with an adult—say, for example, you have a friend who's always borrowing things and returning them late or broken or not at all—you probably don't think about how you can punish that person. You think about how to respectfully protect yourself. You don't say, Now that you've given me back my jacket with a stain on it, and broken the side mirror off my car, I'm going to . . . slap you. That would be assault. Or . . . lock you in your room for an hour. That would be imprisonment. Or . . . take away your smart phone. That would be theft. You'd probably say something like, I don't feel comfortable lending you clothes anymore. I get very upset when they come back damaged. And, I can't lend you my car, which I just got repaired. I need to have it in working condition. In fact, I'd appreciate some help with the repair bill!

~ Joanna Faber

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.

~ Joanna Faber

When there is conflict between us, we don't need to put our energy into fighting each other. We can combine forces to search for a solution that respects the needs of all parties. The child is an active participant in solving his problems. This will stand him in good stead in the years to come.

~ Joanna Faber

Big brotherhood is a burden. The first message he needs to hear from you is that you understand. It isn't easy having to share your parents with a smelly baby or a two-year-old pest! The more we try to convince our kids that it's not so bad, the harder they'll work to convince us that it is indeed that bad.

~ Joanna Faber

We can't give a child a natural consequence. The only truly natural consequences are the ones found in nature.

~ Joanna Faber

You can apply some leverage when your child is feeling energetic, We can go to the park as soon as these blocks are put away. But when a toddler is tired or hungry, avoid a losing battle. Do it yourself for now. There will be plenty of other opportunities for your child to participate. Don't worry, this is not the last mess!!

~ Julie Adair King

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.

~ Marcia Willett

My father's attitude was that this was but an inevitable phase of my growing up and he affected to take it lightly. But beneath his jocular, boys-together air, he was at a loss, he was frightened. Perhaps he had supposed that my growing up would bring us closer together— whereas, now that he was trying to find out something about me, I was in full flight from him. I did not want him to know me. I did not want anyone to know me. And then, again, I was undergoing with my father what the very young inevitably undergo with their elders: I was beginning to judge him. And the very harshness of this judgment, which broke my heart, revealed, though I could not have said it then, how much I had loved him, how that love, along with my innocence, was dying.

~ James Baldwin

She had read enough about teenagers to understand you couldn't confront them directly. You couldn't even agree with them. The best strategy was to feign indifference to whatever wrong direction they were headed in, then plop in little facts, like Alka-Seltzers, round innocuous comments, let those sink in, take slow, antidotal effect . . .

~ Melissa Pritchard

We have a dilemma, then,” Finnikin said fiercely. “Because I prayed that you would grow old and hold my children in your arms as you held me. My prayers have not been answered yet, Trevanion. So whose prayer is more worthy? Yours or mine?

~ Melina Marchetta

Jack, I’m just telling you, if it turns out. . .I want you to shoot me.”“Dee—”I’m not kidding, not exaggerating, just telling you that I do not have it in me to handle that.”“You have a daughter, too. You don’t have the luxury not to handle shit.

~ Blake Crouch

Why did you throw sand when I just told you not to?What child says, Hmm, why did I? I guess there's no good reason. Thanks for pointing that out. It won't happen again.

~ Joanna Faber

Was Vianne really supposed to let Sophie starve to prove her loyalty to France?

~ Kristin Hannah

There is perhaps no harder truth for a parent to bear, but it is one that no parent on earth knows better than I do, and it is this: love is not enough. My love for Dylan, though infinite, did not keep Dylan safe, nor did it save the 13 people killed at Columbine High School, or the many others injured and traumatized. I missed the subtle signs of psychological deterioration that, had I noticed, might have made a difference for Dylan and his victims - all the difference in the world.

~ Sue Klebold

overprotective parents can easily set limits for their children, but they heavily misunderstand the boundaries their children can have as they grow older to become adults. If overprotective parents could not compromise to give their grown children personal space, they deserve some form of intervention from a professional who could explain to them of what is or not appropriate to interact and deal with their children.

~ Saaif Alam

Let us do our best whilst we live for another tomorrow is coming when whilst we are long gone, another group of people shall come to either suffer from our worst or enjoy and build upon our best. Let us run whole heatedly today with all alacrity for another generation shall come for the baton from our hands to either blame us or congratulate us on how we lived the dream and journeyed in life through the good and the bad times; another generation shall come to ponder over our footprints as a good or a bad lesson for them! Let us run with all necessary zeal such that when we hand over the baton, our next generation will have no reason but to soldier on with courage, enthusiasm and absolute commitment to get to the finishing line with a great accomplishment and a noble story worth pondering over and over!

~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Genetics doesn’t ensure love, or even like, time and effort do. You don’t give them your time, and you don’t show them effort

~ Kim Holden

We’re depriving our kids of the chance to do the work of life for themselves.

~ Julie Lythcott-Haims