Emma Thompson Quotes

Many people think that discipline is the essence of parenting. But that isn't parenting. Parenting is not telling your child what to do when he or she misbehaves. Parenting is providing the conditions in which a child can realize his or her full human potential.

People warned us that if we went to them whenever they cried and refused to spank them, we would harm them irrevocably, but we decided there's simply no way to spoil a child. After all, they aren't apples.

Re raising kids: Love, without discipline, isn't.

Every word, facial expression, gesture, or action on the part of a parent gives the child some message about self-worth. It is sad that so many parents don't realize what messages they are sending.

For decades, parents were told by so-called parenting 'experts' that offspring would be best raised on the belief each is special and entitled to all life has to offer.

The art of natural education consists in ignoring the faults of children nine times out of ten, in avoiding immediate interference, which is usually a mistake, and devoting one's whole vigilance to the control of the environment in which the child is growing up, to watching the education which is allowed to go on by itself.

Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of the memory.

I am always trying to evolve, so I like to read parenting books and things like that.

On the average, older parents are more flexible, tolerant, understanding, and happy in child care.

Everything you worry about as a parent can be improved by sitting down regularly with your kids.

I think that old school style of 'I'm your parent and I'm greater than you' doesn't work. What I establish with my children is a partnership.

As a parent, if give yourself what you need, your children will watch you doing that and will give themselves what they need.

If you want your kids to listen to you, don't yell at them. Whisper. Make them lean in. My kids taught me that. And I do it with adults now.

I do not think there was anything abusive in my house. Yet, I stand by a lot of my critiques of Western parenting. I think there's a lot of questions about how you instill true self-esteem.

I am always suspicious of those who impose 'rules' on child rearing. Every child is different in terms of temperament and learning, and every parent responds to a particular child, not some generalized infant or youngster.

I hope that whenever my daughter has a negative experience, I'm there to talk about it and remind her how we feel when it's done to her so that she doesn't do it to others.

That's a big deal for kids, when they come into the kitchen and the teacher is drinking coffee with mom. They react differently on the next day when you say: 'Sit down and shut-up!'

I think there are many ways to raise great kids. From what I can tell, Ayelet Waldman's kids are interesting, strong, and happy, and if that's the case, that's good parenting.

If you're not yelling at your kids, then you're not spending enough time with them!

Young children were sooner allured by love, than driven by beating, to attain good learning.

I don't even know if I have kind of a personal, like a take or a mental manual of how I'm raising kids. It's really - I think with everybody, it's just day-to-day and you just try to deal with every situation as they come.

Want to raise children who will be happy adults? Teach them not to whine.

In mine opinion, love is fitter than fear, gentleness better than beating, to bring up a child rightly in learning.

I think children learn from example. I don't believe in raising them in an authoritative atmosphere.

Most moms and dads, they want to be good moms and dads. But it's an incredibly hard job when you are stressed out, when you are poor, when your life is in chaos. And giving them some of the tools to be better parents, to whittle away at that parenting gap, gives those kids a much better starting point in life.