Ellen DeGeneres Quotes

Be a father first. Don't put a priority of being a friend with your wife first, or a friend with your kids first.

To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.

Sometimes, when I'm scolding the kids, I sound just like my mom. I'm like, 'How did Jonetta get in here?'

You don't need too much to have an agenda of how to father. You just have to be a good person. The interactions at home between you and your spouse and the way you deal with your kids in certain situations, that's what they take.

A lot of things I try to instill in my children comes off of what I've learned from my parents. First of all, you have to lead by example. You can't say one thing and behave another way. Kids learn more from watching you in life than what you say to them. So I try to be the best example I can be to them.

What we are teaches the child far more than what we say, so we must be what we want our children to become.

If you treat your children at home in the same way you treat your animals in the lab, your wife will scratch your eyes out. My wife ferociously warned me against experimenting on her babies.

Be what you wish your children to be. Parents have perpetuated by precept and example their own stamp of character to their posterity.

Husbands, love your wives well! Your children are noticing how you treat her. You are teaching your sons how they should treat women, and you are teaching your daughters what they should expect from men.

Each generation has been an education for us in different ways. The first child-with-bloody-nose was rushed to the emergency room. The fifth child-with-bloody-nose was told to go to the yard immediately and stop bleeding on the carpet.

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

It's very important that we instill some respect for the parents. In America especially, the kids are unruly, screaming at Mommy and Daddy, running the show.

If you've got a lot of children, I think you let the other children bring them up more and you just sort of step in and do stuff like every now and again.

Parents are trying to be friends with their kids rather than draw the line and tell them what proper public behavior would be.

Good mothers and good fathers and good families don't always have great children.

You have to discipline your children, or they won't respect you, law enforcement or God or anyone else.

Parents, raise your kids. Young men and women, raise your kids.

My kids would probably say that I'm too strict. They probably would say that, and I try not to be, but I'm probably more on the conservative end of that. At the same time, I know full well that ultimately I don't really have control over them.

They're really nice kids. Michael is really raising them properly and right.

Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.

Child-rearing is my main interest now. I'm a hands-on father.

My children did not go through a stage of being rude to their parents. I'm sorry if that sounds incredible.

My parents never really lecture me.

I think all kids think their parents are strict. My parents aren't superstrict, but they seem to be stricter than most. But even though it's like, 'Oh, gosh, I've gotta be in at this time,' they know what they're doing. I have great parents.

I think it's easiest to teach by example. My dad didn't tell us to work hard; we just saw how hard he worked. I know I have shortcomings - like a short fuse - but I've learned you can't come home from a long day of work and snap at the kids.