Child Autonomy Quotes

Children can become self-reliant and self-disciplined by being free to do what they want to do.

Being made to feel like an irrelevant child was probably an asset. Benign negligence is not a bad parental attitude or at least a cross between a benevolent dictator and benign negligence - you should just let kids crack on with it.

If my son wants a boxing career, I won't stop him, but I definitely won't push him. It's bad for a kid to be pressured.

Although my parents both liked her, they just didn't approve of a same-sex relationship. Nowadays, people say that you must let children be what they are, but when I was growing up, the parents defined the child - and my parents had a definite vision of how they wanted me to be.

Parents have no right to impose their religion on their children... A Fundamentalist Protestant parent has no right to expect the state to support his own narrow conception of education.

You can't live your life through your children.

Why are you so docile when you give up your child to a government agent called a schoolteacher?

A lot of mothers will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves.

My mother had a rule, obviously, that I couldn't go across the street by myself, but I had to find a way of doing it.

That boy is your company. And if he wants to eat up that tablecloth, you let him, you hear?

The Chinese model calls for giving your kids very little choice - and I've come to see that you can go too far with that. On the other hand, I also believe that Western parents sometimes give their young kids too much choice.

The objects in our system are instead a help to the child himself, he chooses what he wants for his own use, and works with it according to his own needs, tendencies and special interests. In this way, the objects become a means of growth.

Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.

To give a child liberty is not to abandon him to himself.

Adults look upon a child as something empty that is to be filled through their own efforts, as something inert and helpless for which they must do everything, as something lacking an inner guide and in constant need of inner direction. . . . An adult who acts in this way, even though he may be convinced that he is filled with zeal, love, and a spirit of sacrifice on behalf of his child, unconsciously suppresses the development of the child's own personality.

Do not try to live your children's lives out of your own frustrations.

Every time a child organizes and completes a chore, spends some time alone without feeling lonely, loses herself in play for an hour, or refuses to go along with her peers in some activity she feels is wrong, she will be building meaning and a sense of worth for herself and harmony in her family.

Today I am amazed at the things our children have done and their wide range of interests. They are all living their lives and not the ones I would have planned for them. But I have learned that their lives are theirs, not mine, and in living their own lives they have given me experiences and an education I would never have had if I'd been fool enough to make them do what I thought they should do.

There's something suspicious about saying, 'I'm just going to leave my child alone and let her pursue her passions.' You know what? I think most 13-year-olds' passion is sitting in front of the TV, or doing Facebook, or surfing the Internet for hours.

It's not good to assume what your kid wants. It's not good to push them in their own way. It's not good to make them do something you wanted to do but didn't have the chance to. You should listen to what your kids are saying, and let them live, and let them be themselves.

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.

A child should never even think about being a "good son." A parent decides that fate for the child. The parent encourages that. Not the child himself. And the "perfect dad"? I shudder at thinking what that may be.

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it

I'm the kind of parent who asks my kids questions like, 'What would be your ideal thing to do in the summer?'

Children need parents who will let them grow up to be themselves, but parents often have personal agendas they try to impose on their children.