Marva Collins Quotes

Children have more need of models than of critics.

Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.

Children need models rather than critics.

And some of the best coaching you can do is not telling kids something.

But I think that parents who criticise their children too much are in fact better than parents who praise their children too much.

And above all, children need our unconditional love - whether they succeed or make mistakes; when life is easy and when life is tough.

Always praise your kid even if he/she is unresponsive to learning. By insulting them and putting them down, you will only push them away and make them feel inadequate around other kids. Have faith that your child's brain is an evolving planet that rotates at its own speed. It will naturally be attracted to or repel certain subjects. Be patient. Just as there are ugly ducklings that turn into swans, there are rebellious kids that turn into serious innovators and hardcore intellectuals.

The environment itself will teach the child, if every error he makes is manifest to him, without the intervention of a parent of teacher, who should remain a quiet observer of all that happens.

As soon as error is corrected, it is important that the error be forgotten and only the successful attempts be remembered. Errors, mistakes, and humiliations are all necessary steps in the learning process. Once they have served their purpose, they should be forgotten. If we constantly dwell upon the errors, then the error or failure becomes the goal.

Mistakes are a natural part of growing up. They're to be expected and made light of. But children bloom like spring flowers under praise. They want so much to be noticed and appreciated, to excel and have that excellence noticed.

You are the real teachers. You have these children when they are at their emotional peaks and lows. That's when they are the most pliable. It doesn't take any intelligence to send a kid home with his head hanging between his knees. But to send him home with his head up every night might show a little coaching.

Youth need guidance, direction, and proper restraint...Parents, too, have a responsibility in this training not to provoke children to wrath. They should be considerate not to irritate by vexatious commands or place unreasonable blame. Whenever possible they should give encouragement rather than remonstrance or reproof.

The worst thing that can be done to children is to drain their energy while correcting them.

The greatest gift a parent can give a child is unconditional love. As a child wanders and strays, finding his bearings, he needs a sense of absolute love from a parent. There's nothing wrong with tough love, as long as the love is unconditional.

The child does not begin to fall until she becomes seriously interested in walking, until she actually begins walking. Falling is thus more an indication of learning than a sign of failure.

You can tell your kids they are perfect and don't need to change - which could cause insecurity when they recognize their own shortcomings - or tell them they are terrible, which would undermine their sense of self-worth and confidence. There's a happy middle ground.

For someone's character to grow, it has to be free from internal attack. Falling down never stopped children from developing. But getting yelled at, criticized, and put down can stop them for life.

Children don’t need beating. They need love and encouragement. They need fathers to whom they can look with respect rather than fear. Above all, they need example.

Affection can no more spoil a child than the sun could be put out by a bucket of gasoline.

Most children are given far too much praise for their early drawings, so much so that they rarely learn the ability to refine their first crude efforts the way their early attempts at language are corrected.

If we spent as much time lifting our children as we do criticizing them, how effectively we could help them to see themselves in a more positive light!

Here is the beginning of understanding: most parents are doing their best, and most children are doing their best, and they're doing pretty well, all things considered.

Children ought to be led to honorable practices by means of encouragement and reasoning, and most certainly not by blows and ill treatment.

Rewards and punishments, to speak frankly, are the desk of the soul, that is, a means of enslaving a child's spirit, and better suited to provoke than to prevent deformities.

I was waiting for my teammates to embrace me and no one came, ... I told them, 'Come hug me or the referee isn't going to allow it.'