David Whyte Quotes

I'm just going to try and be a good dad and not spoil the kid: give him love and encouragement but also discipline. Me and my woman, we don't want him to feel too entitled.

A dog is the greatest gift a parent can give a child. OK, a good education, then a dog.

Even as kids reach adolescence, they need more than ever for us to watch over them. Adolescence is not about letting go. It's about hanging on during a very bumpy ride.

If I'm lucky enough to see the day when my sons are living independently, maybe with families of their own, I'll still be wondering how I can be a better mother and worrying about the things I overlooked back when they lived under my roof.

Even more than we want good love for ourselves, we want it for our children, those vulnerable satellites of our hearts that we send, unsteady, into the world.

It's a hard call, but I've no desire to live my children's lives. I think my job as a father is to protect them, to allow them a safe place to grow up and to teach them what I've learned.

I think the key to being a good parent is to individualize your love for each child.

You never know how your kids are going to turn out. You can raise them with all the best intentions, and then they're own people, and they have their own inner conflicts. You just hope you've given them some good stuff to navigate with.

Kids grow up, and they still need you.

The relationship between a mother and child is more than just give and take; it is magical.

The greatest gift a parent can give a child is unconditional love. As a child wanders and strays, finding his bearings, he needs a sense of absolute love from a parent. There's nothing wrong with tough love, as long as the love is unconditional.

Being a good mother does not call for the same qualities as being a good housewife; a dedication to keeping children clean and tidy may override an interest in their separate development as individuals.

There comes a moment as a parent when you realize you will no longer be the center of your child's universe.

Being made to feel like an irrelevant child was probably an asset. Benign negligence is not a bad parental attitude or at least a cross between a benevolent dictator and benign negligence - you should just let kids crack on with it.

Slow parents understand that childrearing should not be a cross between a competitive sport and product-development. It is not a project; it's a journey. Slow parenting is about giving kids lots of love and attention with no conditions attached.

I do think you are supposed to go through wars with your child because otherwise the tearing apart that has to happen when they go off to lead their own life would be unbearable.

Your job as a parent is to listen. And to dole out as much love as you can. That includes tough love.

My kids are growing up and it's hard to accept they are their own person and they're independent.

My own eight children all march to the beat of their inner music, and in some cases, it is definitely far away from what I hear. I've had to honor their instincts and their choices, and merely guided them out of harm's way until they could be their own guides.

All I want, and I think all any parent with a semblance of a moral psychology wants, is for my kid to have his own experience, uninhibited.

Every father loves their children. I love my two sons very dearly. The only thing that is important to me is that they do what they want to do. They shouldn't feel a sense of obligation.

I'd definitely be the kind of parent who enabled my child's dreams. I'd just watch and nurture and guide them. I have the blueprints of what not to do... I think I'd be a good parent, actually.

I know that I have raised my sons to be big, strong, independent men who love God, themselves and care for others. I have to learn to let them have space and learn without me.

Being a good psychoanalyst, in short, has the same disadvantage as being a good parent: The children desert one as they grow up.

The best part is seeing my kids grow and become individuals, and the fact that they're happy and well-adjusted.