James Dobson Quotes

The worst thing that can be done to children is to drain their energy while correcting them.

How can we help a child change from undependable to dependable, from a mediocre student to a capable student, from someone who won't amount to very much to someone who will count for something. The answer is at once both simple and complicated: We treat a child as if he already is what we would like him to become.

If you tell children they are bad, that's what they believe they are and that's probably what they will become.

Treat a child as though he already is the person he's capable of becoming.

But I think that parents who criticise their children too much are in fact better than parents who praise their children too much.

It's essentially encouraging parents, teachers, and caretakers to remind children how special they are on a regular basis.

In praising or loving a child, we love and praise not that which is, but that which we hope for.

Always praise your kid even if he/she is unresponsive to learning. By insulting them and putting them down, you will only push them away and make them feel inadequate around other kids. Have faith that your child's brain is an evolving planet that rotates at its own speed. It will naturally be attracted to or repel certain subjects. Be patient. Just as there are ugly ducklings that turn into swans, there are rebellious kids that turn into serious innovators and hardcore intellectuals.

If we spent as much time lifting our children as we do criticizing them, how effectively we could help them to see themselves in a more positive light!

Make this the golden rule, the equivalent of the Hippocratic oath: Everything we ask a child to do should be worth doing.

The parents have to learn that the child should not be insulted, humiliated, condemned. If you want to help him, love him more. Appreciate what is good in him rather than emphasizing what is bad. Talk about his goodness. Let the whole neighborhood know how nice and beautiful a boy he is. You may be able to shift his energy from the bad side to the good side, from the dark side to the lighted side, because you will make him aware that this is the way to get respect, this is the way to be honored. And you will prevent him from doing anything that makes him fall down in people's eyes.

I think the worst atmosphere for a six-year-old is one in which there are no expectations whatsoever. That is, it's worse for the child to grow up in a vacuum where "whatever you do is alright, I'm sure you'll succeed." That is a statement of disinterest. It says, "I really have no fantasies for you at all."

Everyone who comes in is just amazed that our children do not have the animosity, the hatred, because these children are into it. You know, once you learn to like yourself, then you don't see this black-white bit. I still say that a good basic education is the only thing. I feel guilty sometimes because I don't think Jesus Christ could get any more accolades than I do when I walk through that classroom, even from the children I do not teach. They know that I love them, but I am forever telling them, "Get into that seat so you can have choices in this world."

An educator should think of a child as a gardener thinks of a plant, as something to be made to grow by having the right soil and the right amount of water. If your roses fail to bloom, it does not occur to you to whip them, but you try to find out what has been amiss in your treatment of them. ... The important thing is what the children do, and not what they do not do. And what they do, if it is to have value, must be a spontaneous expression of their own vital energy.

Many mothers make the mistake of forever looking for the bad in the child, trying to . . . uproot and drive it out. This is like trying to eject the darkness from a room without opening the shutters and letting in the light. As John Newton said, 'I cannot sweep the darkness out, but I can shine it out.'

A child must learn early to believe that she is somebody worthwhile, and that she can do many praiseworthy things.

Children almost always hang onto things tighter than their parents think they will.

[On the press:] I love working with children, and I have learned to be very patient with them.

You want to know how I think art should be taught to children? Take them to a museum and say, 'This is art, and you can't do it.

Implanting spiritual ideas in children is very important. Many people live their entire lives according to the concepts that are implanted in them in childhood. When children learn they will get the most attention and love through doing constructive things, they will tend to stop doing destructive things. Most important of all, remember that children learn through example. No matter what you say it is what you do that will have an influence on them.

People tend to become what the most important people in their lives think they will become.

Children don’t need beating. They need love and encouragement. They need fathers to whom they can look with respect rather than fear. Above all, they need example.

Words of praise, indeed, are almost as necessary to warm a child into a genial life as acts of kindness and affection. Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.

Children ought to be led to honorable practices by means of encouragement and reasoning, and most certainly not by blows and ill treatment.

Affirm people. Affirm your children. Believe in them, not in what you see but in what you don't see - their potential.