Penny Junor Quotes

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 started my career in parent education with the idea that we needed to let our kids go. I believed that parents were suffocating for their children. There was no room for individuality and personhood.

I don't want to be that parent that puts my kids into what I think they should be in, you know what I mean?

There is one thing you and I as parents cannot do, not do we want to do if we really think about it, and that's control our children's will--that spirit that lets them be themselves apart from you and me. They are not ours to possess, control, manipulate, or even to make mind.

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.

My mother had a very open-minded philosophy about having children: that they should be free to develop in their own way.

It is easy to substitute our will for that of the child by means of suggestion or coercion; but when we have done this we have robbed him of his greatest right, the right to construct his own personality.

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

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.

Hey, if something is making you feel good, and it's not hurting anyone else, does it really matter if others believe?

No matter what parents do, kids retain their uniqueness.

All my children have spoken for themselves since they first learned to speak, and not always with my advance approval, and I expect that to continue in the future.

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.

The more we try to control our kids and create who they are and where they're going, the more that will fall apart. That's a dangerous thing. So you need to actually manage the fear and figure out who your kids are. Who do they want to be and how can you help shape that, but not control it.

If someone doesn't like something, it's their prerogative not to like it. It's not possible to please everyone. That doesn't mean that I'm going to change my mental make-up. I follow my instinct.

My parents have always had this philosophy that overindulging your children is one of the worst things you could do as a parent. It's something that was hammered into my head growing up. And while my mom and dad are not professional authorities on parenting, I can confirm from experience that they had a point.

I think our jobs as parents is to raise our children with empathy - to figure out who this little character is, almost from birth, and then guide them to fulfill their best potential.

We understand and promote the notion that while children need to be guided they also have an entrenched right to be whatever they want to be and that they can achieve this only if they are given the space to dream and live out their dreams.

We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavorable opinion of anyone, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours.

Don't try to make children grow up to be like you, or they may do it.

Like any young person, I do what I want.

I really look at children as being little people and not necessarily things or people to control.

I want my little girl to tell me who she is so I can encourage her and not impose my desires for her on her life. I want her to dream big and to know that if she is willing to earn it, she can have anything - and become anything.

It's your body, your life. Do what you want to do.

There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way.