Peter Gay Quotes

If children live with hostility, they learn to fight. If they live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive. If they live with criticism, they learn to condemn.

It is no wonder that people are so horrible when they start their life as children.

The solution to adult problems tomorrow depends on large measure upon how our children grow up today.

What interests me is what children go through while growing up.

I learned that there are two things that kids really like: movement and love. Happy kids move; unhappy, they don't move.

Generally I find that kids ask better questions than you get with adults. Something that kids will do a lot is, they're so nervous, and they're not really paying attention, so they'll ask the same question someone just asked. And you're trying to be nice and not embarrass them any more than they are already.

I never want to make a child worried or afraid, and I don't think I do. My pictures are born from the belief that children are far more capable and aware of social complexities than we give them credit for.

The underlying message of the Lancet article is that if you want to understand aggressive behaviour in children, look to the social and emotional environment in which they are growing up, and the values they bring to the viewing experience.

Give your kid some credit for being smart - just because they read about something doesn't mean they will do it.

It is the parent's job to see how their child learns and to make sure that the children's self confidence is buoyed at all times, or they will plummet like a stone.

All children know when something is wrong and they can't understand something - they never need someone to tell them they're stupid. They need help in solving the problem.

When what we introduce into the children's world of ideas and feelings is in line with the direction of the developmental forces of a given stage of life, we strengthen the entire developing person in a way that remains a source of strength throughout that person's life.

A four-year-old should have no self-esteem, and for good reason. What could he have possibly accomplished in his life to justify esteeming oneself so highly?

Lot of things depend on the up bringing of a child.

It's hysterical how kids have their own personalities, even at like 3 or 4. And, it's funny what they tend to like.

If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others.

We need to do teacher training to educate them about what temperament means. Shyness is painful and you want to help a child with shyness - but the underlying temperament of being a careful, sensitive person is to be honoured, valued and respected.

A child raised on a desert island, alone, without social interaction, without language, and thus lacking empathy, is still a sentient being.

Children in their young teens are just moving into the moment when they are most receptive to philosophy and psychology. You can explore these things in stories and, in doing so, give them power and control.

I was a confident, outgoing little boy. If you're an only child, you're living in a very linguistically adult world, and you've got to keep up. So I did. Maybe I was slightly annoying.

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.

One of the many interesting and surprising experiences of the beginner in child analysis is to find in even very young children a capacity for insight which is often far greater than that of adults.

I think we actually punish children out of their relationship with their bodies... we categorically separate mind and body and emotion and intellect.

These are the influences that everybody has. Some individuals might stand out because of one thing or another, but whether one's perception as a child of what was important or not is accurate, I don't know.

Slobodan Milosevic was just as smart as a five-year-old. Five-year-olds have an uncanny way of getting into your psyche, your self-esteem.