Carl Honore Quotes

Children don't just play any more - they're far too busy learning to fence and taking extra French classes. In the end, you're actually doing more damage to your children by trying to hot-house them. It's far better to remain a calm parent.

I felt sad because everyday I had to wake up early to practice before going to school. After school I had to go back to tennis again, and then after tennis I had homework. I didn't have time to play.

Can they do both? That's a huge balance, I think, with kids- trying to find the right- it's everything, you know, it's social life, it's academics, it's sports.

If we could have but one generation of properly born, trained, educated and healthy children, a thousand other problems of government would vanish.

Kids are pretty resilient. You don't have to be at every volleyball game. We can't guilt ourselves.

Many think kids have lots of time and few responsibilities. And that's just not true. They are stressed and under pressure.

I think family mealtime is really important. There's a lot of research that shows kids are going to do better in school and have more self-esteem if you can all sit down and eat together.

Any parent who tells their kids that they can't attend a school play or go to a soccer match because they have to work is kidding themselves. It's OK to miss a game or two or a performance here and there, but it's not all right to miss the majority of them.

We're taking sports too far and starting kids too early.

Many kids, particularly in lower-income families, would actually benefit from more structured activities. Plenty of children, especially teenagers, thrive on a busy schedule. But just as other trappings of modern childhood, from homework to technology, are subject to the law of diminishing returns, there is a danger of overscheduling the young.

Warnings about children being overscheduled, racing from one enriching activity to the next, first surfaced in the early 20th century.

Do whatever rejuvenates you. It might be a cooking class, cocktails with the girls, or just private time with the hubby. We all have our moments where we run out of steam because we've given everything we've got to everyone else. Whoever decided that was a good thing? It's not. Everyone needs to refuel.

It wasn't that Harvard was deliberately trying to overwork me, but I think I had a tendency to take on more things out of enthusiasm than were good for me.

I try to keep the martial arts up. It's a good thing, not just physically but also for your mind.

We have a lot of pressures on children very young. We have ambition. We over-schedule our children. We want them to have soccer lessons and violin lessons... I think children need to have at least an hour of fun a day.

I've got great people who handle my schedule, and everything does revolve around the children. If there's a parents' night or an Easter bonnet parade or a Nativity play, whatever it might be, then I plan everything around that.

I think no matter what you do you go through stages when you play. There was a number of times when I didn't do very well or was tired. It was too much to combine school and tennis altogether. Parents need to step in and say, take a little time off, do something fun.

Abundant research has shown that children raised by two parents in an ongoing union are more likely to develop the self-discipline and self-confidence that make for success in life …

Football and school don't go together. They just don't. Trying to do both is like trying to do two full-time jobs.

I needed to step back from cricket, international cricket in particular, just to get away from the scrutiny and intensity of everything. I love it but it was too much for me.

Children need close friends to help them grow up, to discover things about themselves and about life. They also need close friends to keep them sane

We're a nation of exhausted and over-stressed adults raising over-scheduled children.

I think young children in the Western middle classes are objects of incredible anxiety.

Parenting is a negative thing. Keep your children from killing themselves, or anyone else, and hope for the best.

Educating a child won't be difficult if you get through to the parent.