David Elkind Quotes

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.

What will a child learn sooner than a song?

Children have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves, and each time that we try to teach them too quickly, we keep them from reinventing it themselves.

If children know there is someone standing over them who knows all the answers, they are less inclined to find the answers for themselves.

Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves.

Seriously, who really cares how long the Nile river is, or who was the first to discover cheese? How is memorizing that ever going to help anyone? Instead, we need to give kids projects that allow them to exercise their minds and discover things for themselves.

If you're around the system any length of time, it becomes obvious you have to attack the problem at its root and get to 7- and 8-year old kids.

When children draw or do rudimentary painting, the whole human being develops an interest in what is being done. This is why we should allow writing to develop from drawing.

If we can reach in wih the art and touch the imagination of the child, no matter who, we have affected that child.

The French believe that kids feel confident when they're able to do things for themselves, and do those things well. After children have learned to talk, adults don't praise them for saying just anything. They praise them for saying interesting things, and for speaking well.

Children should learn to draw as they learn to write, and such a mystery should not be made of it. They should be encouraged, not flattered... then [later in life] double the effort is required to get the facility which might have been gained insensibly.

I actually think leaving your children alone to fantasize, to write, to make projects on their own is good for them. Breathing down their necks is a form of control. Children should have their own space.

The apparent ease with which children learn is their ruin.

Children should be introduced right from the start to the potentialities of their environment, to the physical and psychological laws that govern the visual world, and to the supreme enjoyment that comes from participating in the creative process of giving form to one's living space.

The development of a child is guaranteed in his curiosity to discover the cause behind each and every incident.

Merely to stuff the child with a lot of information, making him pass examinations, is the most unintelligent form of education.

I do not believe there is a method better than Montessori for making children sensitive to the beauties of the world and awakening their curiosity regarding the secrets of life.

We must clearly understand that when we give the child freedom and independence, we are giving freedom to a worker already braced for action, who cannot live without working and being active.

I consider writing as a fine art. We kill it by imposing the alphabet on little children and making it the beginning of learning.

A child is being properly educated only when he is learning to become independent of his parents.

The only effective way to help well-intentioned, intelligent persons to do the best they can in raising children is to encourage and guide them always to do their own thinking in their attempts at understanding and dealing with child-rearing situations and problems, and not to rely blindly on the opinions of others.

For children mastery entails struggle. This means they must be permitted to struggle. If parents inappropriately step in to "help"-out of impatience or solicitude-they sabotage important learning. Among other things, the child is unlikely to discover the advantages of perseverance and self-discipline.

Most children are given far too much praise for their early drawings, so much so that they rarely learn the ability to refine their first crude efforts the way their early attempts at language are corrected.

Children need nature for the healthy development of their senses, and therefore, for learning and creativity.

Children will learn to do what they want to learn to do.