Michael Gurian Quotes

I believe that the first 8 years are most important and the time in a child's life when parents must be absolutely and completely present.

The greatest development is achieved during the first years of life, and therefore it is then that the greatest care should be taken. If this is done, then the child does not become a burden; he will reveal himself as the greatest marvel of nature.

I went to my local Sure Start centre, and they put me on a parenting course. I learned things that might seem simple - that it was important to hug and love your child, and read to them. This might seem obvious, but it wasn't to me at the time.

Every parent knows this moment in a child's age when he or she needs your attention in a very specific way because it's the beginning and ending of the early life of imagination. It's such a responsibility.

The more people have studied different methods of bringing up children the more they have come to the conclusion that what good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is the best after all.

We've got to understand that the ages of zero to three are the most formative years of a person's life, the time they learn the concept of reward and punishment and develop a conscience, and that 50 percent of all learned human response is learned in the first year of life.

My whole thing with parenting, even though this is my first time, I want to just put five or six objects on the floor - a trumpet, a piano, some dancing or a computer or whatever it is, and just see what he picks up.

There's healthy attachment, like with a mother and child. It's biologically part of our survival.

Reading to children at night, responding to their smiles with a smile, returning their vocalizations with one of your own, touching them, holding them - all of these further a child's brain development and future potential, even in the earliest months.

My children, who are almost two: watching them develop has made me pay much closer attention to how we become who we are.

I'm afraid the parenting advice to come out of developmental psychology is very boring: pay attention to your kids and love them.

Babies and young children are like the research and development division of the human species, and we grown-ups are production and marketing.

The only thing I know is that no one ever sat in a therapist's or a psychiatrist's room saying, 'My parents just loved me too much.' The only thing you can do is love them and be around. Kids don't really care what your car is like or how big their house is. All they really care about is that you are around.

The first decade of your life is really important; it's formative.

It's vital that we help them get the right start, nurture their development and provide for their well-being.

Many people think that discipline is the essence of parenting. But that isn't parenting. Parenting is not telling your child what to do when he or she misbehaves. Parenting is providing the conditions in which a child can realize his or her full human potential.

Parents are the designated caregivers and are best suited for being able to raise children.

It is a truism that children need more of Mother than of money.

As children, we looked up to our maids and our nannies, who were playing in some ways the role of our mothers. They were paid to be nice to us, to look after us, teach us things and take time out of their day to be with us. As a child you think of these people as an extension of your mother.

It's a hard call, but I've no desire to live my children's lives. I think my job as a father is to protect them, to allow them a safe place to grow up and to teach them what I've learned.

I just happen to believe that what's at stake in the early child's development is so vital and so important, and I think it is founded in the main, in the broad cultural sense, on the relationship between the mother and child.

Some people aren't great with babies, or they're not great with a smaller child - it's not that they're bad mothers.

Babies have millions of brain cells. They are like light bulbs waiting to be turned on. Don't wait for them to go to school and hope for the best.

If you think a child is going to be your accessory... it's not like a micro pig. It's not about putting them in front of the television. You need to read to them at night.

Kids who are poor often have families that have not really been kept informed about... how important it is to read to your child, to reduce stresses in their life, to use positive incentives and words.