Laura Bush Quotes

The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil.

The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six.

The first years of a child's life are too important for a child's future - their development, earnings, behavior, and health - for anyone to ignore.

The first years of life are not just important; they are more crucial to shaping children than any other time. Even before they speak, children are extremely sensitive to the messages adults send them.

I don't think I have ever done anything for this age of children before, a pre-school audience. Generally speaking, we don't have vivid memories of that age and what influenced us, yet clearly they are hugely formative years and it's really important that we can create television of a high quality for that audience.

I focus on supporting high quality early childhood health care and education. By betting my resources on very young children, I know I'm making an investment that pays guaranteed dividends with a high rate of return.

Children under five are the poorest age group in America, and one in four infants, toddlers and preschoolers are poor during the years of greatest brain development.

I have for many years interested myself in the study of children from three years upwards. Many have urged me to continue my studies on the same lines with older children. But what I have felt to be most vital is the need for more careful and particularized study of the tiny child.

One of the best investments we can make is to give our kids the ingredients they need to develop in the first five years of life.

When kids are really little, they all look the same. No speech, no social relatedness, cannot emphasize enough the importance of early educational intervention.

If children are not introduced to music at an early age, I believe something fundamental is actually being taken from them.

Youngsters of the age of two and three are endowed with extraordinary strength. They can lift a dog twice their own weight and dump him into the bathtub.

We need to provide higher quality and innovative early childhood development programs all throughout Latin America.

Childhood is a fundamental part of all human lives, parents or not, since that's how we all start out. And yet babies and young children are so mysterious and puzzling and even paradoxical.

By four years of age, the average child in a family receiving public assistance has heard about 13 million words, compared to 45 million for a child from a wealthier family. The disadvantages developed during their first four years are usually still present in high school.

It's easier to learn things for life by the age of 12 and not the age of 18. This is just my guess.

Early childhood education begins early, even before birth.

I believe that the first 8 years are most important and the time in a child's life when parents must be absolutely and completely present.

Experts tell us that 90% of all brain development occurs by the age of five. If we don't begin thinking about education in the early years, our children are at risk of falling behind by the time they start Kindergarten.

When kids are young, before the age of ten, there is a critical window of opportunity when their habits and motivations can be influenced.

A child needs to be listened to and talked to at 3 and 4 and 5 years of age. Parents should not wait for the sophisticated conversation of a teenager.

I have a strong memory of my early childhood. I can remember life before I was two. I remember being toilet-trained like it was last week - and it wasn't last week.

I believe that investing in our children's development from the earliest age is the single most important contribution we can make to the health and wellbeing of our citizens, their capacity and the future prosperity of our state.

I think much of what you learn as a kid comes before age seven.

Both the IDB and Fundacion ALAS believe that the future of prosperity and equality that we hope for has to start today with higher investment and higher quality in Early Childhood Development programs throughout the region.