Kelley Armstrong Quotes

I saw a sign that said, 'Watch for children.' I was like, 'That sounds like a fair trade - especially if they're crappy kids.'

Single parents in particular may have trouble maintaining themselves as authority figures because of underlying guilt; they feel acontinuing sense that they have deprived their kids of the second parent, and so they tend to give in to the children's requests, even when unreasonable.

I love pizza. I want to marry it, but it would just be to eat her family at the wedding.

I like children - fried.

I'm lucky: I have very funny kids.

I think that parents only get so offended by television because they rely on it as a babysitter and the sole educator of their kids.

I think old school TV shows helped in raising your kids and helped in the way things should be done. Now you just see kids disrespecting their parents, you see kids cursing and all kind of things that shouldn't be done.

I think part of being a parent is trying to kill your kids.

In spite of what youngsters think, parents do not get a sneaky thrill out of punishing their children.

My boy is a mean kid. I came home the other day and saw him taping worms to the sidewalk, he sits there and watches the birds get hernias. Well, only last Christmas I gave him a B-B gun and he gave me a sweatshirt with a bulls-eye on the back. I told my kids, "Someday, you'll have kids of your own." One of them said, "So will you."

It's easy enough to get along with a loved and loving child - at least till you try to get him to do something.

My kids used to do things to aggravate me, too. I'd take them to a game, and they'd want to come home with a different player.

~We were on a family trip to Death Valley, and there were moments when my husband and I wanted to just leave the kids there - all the whining! You think that no other kid can do it as much as yours. When they're with friends, they're great; when they're in the car with just the family, it's maddening at times. But you adore them anyway.~

My parents were strict. They weren't as strict on me as they were with the others, but my mother didn't want us to get on anyone's nerves... Go to someone else's house and drive their parents crazy. Another thing was they didn't want us to get into a lot of things that a lot of kids - if they're not careful - can slip into.

Where are all the sour patch parents?

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

Obviously, you want to teach your child between right and wrong, respect and being kind to others, whether it's their sisters or parents. You try to teach them by example, talk to them and explain certain situations. But there's also a time to put them in time out or let them know they've made a mistake and try to learn from it.

Spare the rod and spoil the child - that is true. But, beside the rod, keep an apple to give him when he has done well.

Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's cart, and say, "Great. Maybe you can do a better job." Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast. Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed.

Has it ever occurred to you that parents are nothing but overgrown kids until their children drag them into adulthood? Usually kicking and screaming?

Kids take you outside your comfort level because you ask yourself, 'How do I answer that question for them?' You think back to your childhood, and it's like: I don't want to give them that, I want to give them this. My life is my children.

The better you are as a parent, the richer the nest you've built, the more difficult it is for your kids to leave. So they have to invent things to dislike about you. And they're brilliant at it.

But the reasonableness of this command to obey parents, is clear, and easily understood by children, even when quite young.

Parents often give middle names just so that later, when they're yelling at the kid, they can drag it out. Henry David Thoreau, you come in here this instant!

I loved being blonde. It's true, they have more fun, even when they're cannibalising their children.