George Monbiot Quotes

The age-old mistake, which has stunted countless lives, is the assumption that because physical hardship in childhood makes you physically tough, emotional hardship must make you emotionally tough.

But the hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes. The heart of a hurt child can shrink so that forever afterward it is hard and pitted as the seed of a peach. Or again, the heart of such a child may fester and swell until it is a misery to carry within the body, easily chafed and hurt by the most ordinary things.

Sometimes I think we're exposed to things we shouldn't be exposed to too early. I think that sets the tone to a person's whole life. Trauma.

But I don't think I've grown up to be a damaged adult.

The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop a strong and healthy sense of self.

People repeat in adult life emotions they experience in childhood. Many of the people whom I spent the last 30 or 40 years treating at so much per minute wouldn't have needed any treatment at all if they had had the right care as children.

The problem is that too many adults think their kids' lives are simple, or they try to make their lives simple, when their emotional lives are just as complicated as ours. They might have a few less tools to deal with it because they're young, but the emotions are all the same, and the subject matter is all the same.

I don't think children are any more resilent than anyone else. They're just people with little bodies.

When you have a tough childhood, you either cry or make a joke.

These days, there are a great many books about childhood trauma and its effects, but at the time all the experts agreed that one should forget about it as quickly as possible and pick up where you left off.

I have worked very hard on being aware of my childhood but moving forward and not letting it bring me down emotionally. That is a hard thing - especially when you have children of your own and you remember what happened to you at that age.

If bad things happen to you as a kid, it's hard for you to succeed as an adult.

My childhood was so traumatic.

When you grow up around sadness, it affects the way you see the world.

The boy taught from infancy to be tough is emotionally doomed.

A child born today in the United Kingdom stands a ten times greater chance of being admitted to a mental hospital than to a university ... This can be taken as an indication that we are driving our children mad more effectively than we are genuinely educating them. Perhaps it is our way of educating them that is driving them mad.

The meaning of self-esteem is to feel lovable and capable. As parents, we must love our children unconditionally and give them a sense of being nurtured. That's the lovable part. Then, we must provide structure - rules, boundaries, daily or weekly household tasks that give them a sense they are making a contribution. That's what helps kids grow up feeling capable.

My dad kept me away from people who treat children wrong. It's just amazing that there is such a way to raise a person without giving them complexes. But nobody does it. They think it should be the old school. But look at the products. Wouldn't it be great if you could avoid the complexes? Then you could deal with the complexes of life.

But the hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes.

Adults constantly raise the bar on smart children, precisely because they're able to handle it. The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them and gradually lose the sort of openness and sense of accomplishment they innately have. When they're treated like that, children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up again. Kids' hearts are malleable, but once they gel it's hard to get them back the way they were.

A child's mental health is just as important as their physical health.

I was powerless over my childhood but the coping strategies that I developed, to survive, all of which were creative and brilliant and got me through, as an adult those became my defects of character. Those became my shortcomings, control and all that kind of stuff... and that's my responsibility. I was a blameless child in what happened in the home; I take responsibility for my behaviors as an adult.

Negative feelings are like weeds. If you don't fully extract them (i.e. pull out the roots), they will come back.

There are worse things than being mad.

It's kind of a little fly-on-the-wall look at these people trying to stay sane.