Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

I feel that if you shelter your kids from everything, one day they are going to be out in the world on their own, and they are going to have to figure it out. You can't give them a test if you never taught them anything that's on the test. They're going to fail.

My mother told me to raise my kids with calculated neglect. They get their self-worth from doing what they can do and not having everything done for them.

A parent does not do everything for their kid. A parent that does everything for their kid produces a kid with no self-confidence. If our parents fixed everything for us and did not allow us to do anything on our own, or intervened every single time, we would all grow up to be completely dependent. The reason we grow up to be healthy adults is because our parents played this game of giving us responsibility, disciplining us when necessary, letting us try, letting us fail.

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.

A parent does not do everything for their kid. A parent that does everything for their kid produces a kid with no self-confidence.

I think it's good for parents to be supportive, to motivate, and to somewhat nudge their kids because the majority of kids will want to quit something when it gets hard - that's just their nature. Children will normally take the easier road.

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

If children can't handle competition when it's necessary, or take some criticism, or never strive to be better because their parents inadvertently programmed them to believe they are already the best even when they're not, then they are in for some serious shocks and bumps down the road.

My kids have got to work themselves around my life, not the other way. That's how kids become brats, if you're there staring at them all the time going, 'Are you alright?'

Sometimes you just gotta be drop-kicked out of the nest.

We're so preoccupied with protecting children from disappointment and discomfort that we're inadvertently excusing them from growing up.

You have to trust your kids. They have to experience life, and you just hope you've provided them a foundation for what's right and what isn't.

We just don't like the idea of turning the children over to nannies and minders. We like to help them ourselves - and then, of course, we know what to tell them when they ought to do something on their own.

I had to learn to toughen up and fend for myself. You'd think when you have a lot of brothers and sisters, they'd come to your aid and rescue you a lot of times, but for us it wasn't really like that. It was tough love.

I think about that with kids - you want to do everything for them, but you realize if you do everything, and you make it easy on them, they won't learn anything, and then they will walk around life needing their mamas all the time, and that isn't attractive.

I had to grow up fast.

I had to grow up a little fast.

Both 'Saturday Church' and 'Pose' are incredible because they demonstrate something essential about survival. When you get pushed hard enough by certain circumstances, your survival mechanism kicks in, and you grow into the things that you need or are missing in your life.

I don't want to be coddled.

Discipline is a symbol of caring to a child.He needs guidance.If there is love, there is no such thing as being too tough with a child. A parent must also not be afraid to hang himself. If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent.

The greatest thing my dad taught me came from when I called him from a phone booth and said, 'Hungry. No bus token. Please. Out of options.' He said, 'Pfft, get a job.

I've always believed that parents are not for leaning upon, but rather exist to make leaning unnecessary.

Where parents do too much for their children, the children will not do much for themselves.

It's important for survival that children have their own experiences, the kind they learn from. The kind their parents arrange for are not as useful. Good parents are the hardest to get rid of.

The more risks you allow your children to make, the better they learn to look after themselves.