To middle-class parents, the project team may have seemed unfit for children, but it was exactly what I needed.
O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales.
In 50 years, the world has changed, especially for kids, but kids' needs haven't changed. They still need to feel safe, be close to their families, like their teachers, and have friends to play with.
One truth I've learned as a father: Children want presence more than presents. They don't want to read about you; they want you.
Every child needs to have for itself not only its loving parents and siblings and friends of its own age, but a grown-up friend.
The child knows only that he engages in play because it is enjoyable. He isn't aware of his need to play--a need which has its source in the pressure of unsolved problems. Nor does he know that his pleasure in playing comes from a deep sense of well-being that is the direct result of feeling in control of things, in contrast to the rest of his life, which is managed by his parents or other adults.
Children have a right to some stability and constancy from the adults in their lives.
The child has a primary need to be regarded and respected as the person he really is at any given time, and as the center - the central actor - in his own activity.
It was not generally realized that what children mostly wanted was to be left alone.
Above all else, children need to know and feel they are loved, wanted, and appreciated. They need to be assured of that often. Obviously, this is a role parents should fill, and most often the mother can do it best.
The best way to make your spouse and children feel secure is not with big deposits in bank account, but with little deposits of thoughtfulness and affection in the 'love account.'
Children long to know that they are lovable. And there are ways that technology can help with that. But ultimately it's their relationships with their parents, their grandparents, their peers, and their teachers that help them to know that for sure. A child can learn the word "hug" and the letters h-u-g through a computer, but a computer can never give the child a hug.
Every child deserves a home and love. Period.
Children are to be born into a family where the parents hold the needs of children equal to their own in importance. And children are to love parents and each other.
Every boy wants someone older than himself to whom he may go in moods of confidence and yearning. The neglect of this child's want by grown people . . . is a fertile source of suffering.
Children need to have a home. I don't mean a physical four walls and a room. There needs to be an emotional and spiritual and loving place in life. That's what a family is.
I often say that if I had one wish in this world, I would wish that every child could have a mother the way my mother were. And I never went without clothes, I never went without food... I never went without anything that a child needs. But above all of that, she gave me unconditional love.
Children do not really need money. After all, they don't have to pay rent or send mailgrams.
Ay Dad, brush my hair one time. Hey pops! Come brush my hair.
Children spell love with four letters: T-I-M-E.
The young child needs not only gratification; he needs also to learn the limitations that the physical world puts upon his gratifications
I want to create the content I didn't have while growing up.
When you're a child, the most important thing is to be able to live a life of comfort. You want to be sure that the moon goes up at night and the sun comes up in the morning and dad comes home from work.
I also think my dad would be reminding me that kids — more than anything else — need to know their parents love them. Their parents don't have to be alive for that to happen.
The child who acts unlovable is the child who most needs to be loved.
