Herbert Spencer Quotes

The thing with children is they're a bit like baking a fruitcake: you throw all the ingredients in but you never know how they're going to turn out.

With social media, people share mostly their best moments. Don't feel like you're not doing enough when you see a mom posting about making applesauce after you bought it. Ha ha! It's fine! Just for raising a little human being, you should be commended.

Children grow out of childhood, but parents never grow out of parenthood.

An infallible way to make your child miserable is to satisfy all his demands. Passion swells by gratification; and the impossibility of satisfying every one of his demands will oblige you to stop short at last, after he has become a little headstrong.

I felt like all of the work was training for just one central idea: Accept your child for who he is. I'm not saying that I've done a brilliant job with that. But I've done my best.

You can't make your kids what you want them to be. They are who they are and you have to help them to succeed in the world as best you can.

Are you the adult that you want your child to grow up to be?

Your children will smash your understanding, knowledge and reality. You will be better off. Then they will leave. You'll miss them forever.

We want our children to fit in and to stand out. We rarely address the conflict between these goals.

How many really capable men are children more than once during the day!

The children who are appreciated for what they are, even if they are homely, or clumsy, or slow, will grow up with confidence in themselves and happy. They will have a spirit that will make the best of all the capacities that they do have and of all the opportunities that come their way.

Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or major motion picture star. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use the word "collectible" as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified success.

"What is the greatest mistake a parent can make?" she asked. "To believe that your children will be just like you."

I really want my kids to feel, is that they can be themselves in the world.

Do the best you can. And remember that the greatest asset you have in this world is those children who you've brought into the world, and for whose nurture and care you're responsible.

Anyone who has brought up children knows that consistency has absolutely nothing to do with discipline.

My goal as a parent is to prepare you for the future, not to make you like me.

When I was a child at sixteen, I was just a child. All sixteen year-olds are just children. As much as we like them to be adults, they are just children. And like all children, they need their mother, and they need their father. All children need their mother and their father. All children are entitled to their mother and their father.

. . . besides love, independence of thought is the greatest gift an adult can give a child.

I think the main thing is trying to be fair, sometimes there has to be a little bit of discipline, maybe even punishment involved in trying to make your child understand, learn from bad experiences and make sure they don't happen again.

Children are different - mentally, physically, spiritually, quantitatively, qualitatively; and furthermore, they're all a little bit nuts.

Those who do too much for their children will soon find they can do nothing with their children. So many children have been so much done for they are almost done in.

Katie is like my calendar, watching her grow and change. She is growing up so fast, learning to have opinions of her own, learning that I don’t have the answers to everything. And the moment a child begins to understand that, you know you’re in trouble.

Rearing three children is like growing a cactus, a gardenia, and a tubful of impatiens. Each needs varying amounts of water, sunlight and pruning. Were I to be absolutely fair, I would have to treat each child as if he or she were absolutely identical to the other siblings, and there would be no profit for anyone in that.

It's okay to be you. You don't have to try to be anybody else. Whatever you are, however you are, it's fine. Nobody's perfect.