Roald Dahl Quotes

A child is being properly educated only when he is learning to become independent of his parents.

children once settled and confident can mostly be left, it seems, to manage their difficulties without us. Only what we must do, always and unalterably, is hold their hand firmly in general goodwill, then they themselves seem to deal with their own particular troubles far better than we can.

...the more risks you allow children to take, the better they learn to take care of themselves. If you never let them take any risks, then I believe they become very prone to injury. Boys should be allowed to climb tall trees and walk along the tops of high walls and dive into the sea from high rocks... The same with girls. I like the type of child who takes risks. Better by far than the one who never does so.

Most of the time I believe in letting kids go ahead and make their own mistakes - maybe even get a little hurt - and learn from them.

You've got to learn to let go and let your children fall, and fail. If you try to protect them from hurt, and always rush to their side with Band-Aids, they won't learn about life, and what is true, what works, what helps, and what are real consequences of certain kinds of behavior. When they do get hurt, which they will, they won't know how to take care of their grown selves. They won't even know where the aspirin is kept.

What the majority of American children needs is to stop being pampered, stop being indulged, stop being chauffeured, stop being catered to. In the final analysis, it is not what you do for you children but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.

. . . if we have children. When they are just born we do everything for them. We are omnipotent, they are completely dependent on us, but then when they grow up you must take back your influence on them, to give them freedom.

I've always believed that parents are not for leaning upon, but rather exist to make leaning unnecessary.

It's important for survival that children have their own experiences, the kind they learn from. The kind their parents arrange for are not as useful. Good parents are the hardest to get rid of.

It's exciting to see how fast your kids learn and grow. I'm not too worried about them, particularly the ones who like to break rules and don't follow instructions; those are the ones that will do just fine because they know what's important to them.

I tried to allow my children to take risks, to test themselves. Better broken bones than broken spirit.

The best nourishment for any soul is to create your own risks.

If you would have your son to walk honourably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them - not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone.

Kids are smart. Knowledge is power. Let them figure things out. Don't turn into that grown-up who they won't come to.

Be able to live alone, even if you don't want to and think you will never find it necessary.

For me, I want my kids to find their way. If they're interested in something, I want them to try it out.

I hope my books empower kids, and that they learn how to work out their problems themselves.

All I want, and I think all any parent with a semblance of a moral psychology wants, is for my kid to have his own experience, uninhibited.

We all have a natural instinct to protect children from harm. It's never fun to see a child hurt, even if it's just a scraped knee. But on the other hand, children need to take on physical challenges to learn and grow, and scraped knees and other bumps and bruises teach them valuable lessons about their own limits.

When we protect children from every possible source of danger, we also prevent them from having the kinds of experiences that develop their sense of self-reliance, their ability to assess and mitigate risk, and their sense of accomplishment.

I knew that if-God forbid-anything ever happened in my life, I needed to know how to take care of myself.

I tried to do things independently with each child.

My mother told me to raise my kids with calculated neglect. They get their self-worth from doing what they can do and not having everything done for them.

Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.

Women call me all the time and tell me, 'You inspired me to get out of a bad situation,' or 'You inspired me to take the reigns for myself and go and do this.' I try to tell people to live their best life, and do what you know you need to do for yourself and your family. You need to be supported.