Clare Balding Quotes

My mother set us to an activity and let us be.

children once settled and confident can mostly be left, it seems, to manage their difficulties without us. Only what we must do, always and unalterably, is hold their hand firmly in general goodwill, then they themselves seem to deal with their own particular troubles far better than we can.

When I was a kid, my mother's parenting style teetered between benign neglect and intense bouts of violence.

I've decided the secret of parenting is benevolent neglect.

My kids are free to do what ever they want. Because I only advise. I don't make them do anything.

To me, Slow parenting is about bringing balance into the home. Children need to strive and struggle and stretch themselves, but that does not mean childhood should be a race. Slow parents give their children plenty of time and space to explore the world on their own terms.

I grew up under the British system, which I think is horrific for children - very, very strict - a system that did not recognize children as being individuals. You were small animals earning the right to be human.

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.

Being a good parent will necessarily break our hearts as we watch a child grow and eventually choose their own way, even through many of the same heartbreaks we have traversed.

My parents didn't care very much what I did, and that was probably a blessing.

My father was an amazing man. No person is perfect, and no father-son relationship is perfect. He wanted me to live my life my way and never think about what he would have done or what he would have wanted to do.

Do not make decisions for your kid. It's not going to turn out well.

My parents never leave me alone.

I think I'm a disciplined mom versus a strict mom. But also, that job - the disciplining was from birth until about 12, and at 12, I set my kids free, and they learned to become independent human beings.

To give a child liberty is not to abandon him to himself.

Children need parents who will let them grow up to be themselves, but parents often have personal agendas they try to impose on their children.

I have very good advice to give to kids this age, which is, you shouldn't listen to your mum or dad and you just have to work it out for yourself. And the reason I've taken the age range down this year, and I never would have done it 10 years ago, is what I've seen with the success of Willow Smith. You don't have to be so cutesy anymore.

The present practice is to impress one's own discoveries, opinions and principles on the child by constantly directing his actions. The last thing to be realised by the educator is that he really has before him an entirely new soul, a real self whose first and chief right is to think over the things with which he comes in contact.

Children should have enough freedom to be themselves - once they've learned the rules.

For me, I want my kids to find their way. If they're interested in something, I want them to try it out.

Don't live vicariously through your kids or try to shape them into who you wanted to be, like the popular kid or an athlete. Children should be given the opportunity to be themselves.

I think a common misperception about attuning and tending to a child's needs so constantly is that they don't grow in their independence, but I think that the opposite is true.

All our efforts to guard and guide our children may just get in the way of the one thing they need most from us: to be deeply loved yet left alone so they can try a new skill, new slang, new style, new flip-flops. So they can trip a few times, make mistakes, cross them out, try again, with no one keeping score.