Philip Wylie Quotes

The basic idea that incentives can be used to motivate behavior is a powerful one. It works for employees, and it has a clear place in parenting, as anyone who has tried to potty-train a recalcitrant toddler with sticker rewards knows.

This system of encouragement proves serviceable as a preventive of punishment, the attainment of the tickets being a reward, the forfeiture of them the reverse; and, as such, boys seem often more affected by their loss than by coercion.

Typically, if you reward something, you get more of it. You punish something, you get less of it. And our businesses have been built for the last 150 years very much on that kind of motivational scheme.

He has honored & salaried almost every villain he could find.

I found this deer toy that poops out candy. And so if I say, 'Cree, you have to go to bed right now. You will get a candy.' We've named the pooping deer 'Gus.'... He gets a jelly bean. And it works. Positive reinforcement is the way to go. I'm learning things like that which help me be a better parent.

You know that your toddler needed love and approval but he often seemed not to care whether he got it or not and never seemed to know how to earn it. Your pre-school child is positively asking you to tell him what does and does not earn approval, so he is ready to learn any social refinement of being human which you will teach him....He knows now that he wants your love and he has learned how to ask for it.

Thus parents, by humouring and cockering them when little, corrupt the principles of nature in their children, and wonder afterwards to taste the bitter waters, when they themselves have poison'd the fountain.

Common sense should tell us that positively reinforcing sadistic behavior, as these games do, cannot be good for our children.

Rewards and punishments, to speak frankly, are the desk of the soul, that is, a means of enslaving a child's spirit, and better suited to provoke than to prevent deformities.

Obviously, discipline is necessary for children. Training is necessary for children. Just like if you want to train a vine, you have to apply physical manipulation to get it to go where you want it to go, but as it learns, then you don't have to do that.

Teaching which ignores the realities of children will be rejected as surely as any graft which attempts to ignore the body's immune system.

Western parents try to respect their children’s individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they’re capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits, and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.

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

Smack your child every day. If you don't know why - he does.

Obviously, you want to teach your child between right and wrong, respect and being kind to others, whether it's their sisters or parents. You try to teach them by example, talk to them and explain certain situations. But there's also a time to put them in time out or let them know they've made a mistake and try to learn from it.

Lawless schools produce lawless children.

Unfortunately, corruption is widespread in government agencies and public enterprises.

While budgets are tight right now, there are schools across the country that are showing that it doesn't take a whole lot of money or resources to give our kids the nutrition they deserve. What it does take, however, is effort. What it does take is imagination. What it does take is a commitment to our children's futures.

Some children lack tools to see their course in the world in far-sighted ways. Just introducing school vouchers won't change that. You have to have nurse-home partnerships, early childhood education, mentoring programs and so on. People learn from people they love.

Beware of letting small faults pass unnoticed under the idea it is a little one. There are no little things in training children; all are important. Little weeds need plucking up as much as any. Leave them alone and they will soon be great.

I don't think it's bribery; I think it's extortion. Bribery, you know, is when the person that's giving the money does it voluntarily. What it is in Washington is extortion because they all ask for the money.

Political corruption is to Rhode Islanders as smog is to people who live in Los Angeles: nobody complains of its absence, but when it rolls around everyone feels right at home.

In all primary school work the principle of multiple impressions is well recognized.

And every day when I've been good, I get an orange after food.

I've since come to understand the reason school lasts thirteen years. It takes that long to sufficiently break a child's will. It is not easy to disconnect children's wills, to disconnect them from their own experiences of the world in preparation for the lives of painful employment they will have to endure.