Encouraging Independence Quotes

Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.

The best way of leading people is to let them find their own way.

"Baby, you know?" my mother once said to me. "I think you're the greatest woman I've ever met - and I'm not including my mother or Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt in that." She said, "You are very intelligent and you're very kind, and those two qualities do not often go together." Then she went across the street and got in her car, and I went the other way down to the streetcar. I thought, "Suppose she's right. She's intelligent - and she's too mean to lie." You see, a parent has the chance - and maybe the responsibility - to liberate her child. And my mom had liberated me when I was 17.

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

We must support as much as possible the child's desires for activity; not wait on him, but educate him to be independent.

A boss who micromanages is like a coach who wants to get in the game. Leaders guide and support and then sit back to cheer from the sidelines.

Our instinct as parents is to order our kids around — it's easier, and frankly, we're usually right. [But] reverse the waterfall as much as possible. Enlist the children in their own upbringing.

To freely bloom that is my definition of success. The question then is, How does arguing with our children advance our goal that our children freely bloom.

My childhood was really nice. My parents never forced me to do anything; it was always, "If you want to do that, fine." When I told my father I was going to be an actor, he said, "Fine, but study welding just in case."

The goal is not to turn kids into your kind of adult, but rather better adults than you have been.

If children had teachers for judgment and eloquence just as they have for languages, if their memory was exercised less than their energy or their natural genius, if instead of deadening their vivacity of mind we tried to elevate the free scope and impulse of their souls, what might not result from a fine disposition? As it is, we forget that courage, or love of truth and glory are the virtues that matter most in youth; and our one endeavour is to subdue our children's spirits, in order to teach them that dependence and suppleness are the first laws of success in life.

What advice can we give to new mothers? Their children need to work at an interesting occupation: they should not be helped unnecessarily, nor interrupted, once they have begun to do something intelligent.

I can't never stop nobody, can't knock nobody hustle.

I pray that I may never meddle, interfere, dictate, give advice that is not wanted, or assist when my services are not needed. If I can help people, I'll do it by giving them a chance to help themselves; and if I can uplift or inspire, let it be by example, inference and suggestion, rather than by injunction and dictation. That is to say, I desire to be Radiant -- to Radiate Life!

Never allow others to think you always have the best answers. This will only make them dependent on you.

I think the best thing that you can do with your kids is to talk to them like they're human beings, not like they're children and they don't know what they're doing.

I think that good parenting should allow children to be children. That naivety and slightly open way of looking at the world is very valuable.

I've always believed that parents are not for leaning upon, but rather exist to make leaning unnecessary.

He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand.

[My kids] don't need to cook to keep me happy. It's my job as dad to create opportunities so that they can find their passion. Forget about money, find what you really want to do with your life.

What kind of life am I setting up for her (her = daughters)?...It's not just about making them, like, not be assholes, which is what I think any parent would do.

A parent does not do everything for their kid. A parent that does everything for their kid produces a kid with no self-confidence. If our parents fixed everything for us and did not allow us to do anything on our own, or intervened every single time, we would all grow up to be completely dependent. The reason we grow up to be healthy adults is because our parents played this game of giving us responsibility, disciplining us when necessary, letting us try, letting us fail.

A parent does not do everything for their kid. A parent that does everything for their kid produces a kid with no self-confidence.

Empowerment is all about letting go so that others can get going.

Part of the thrill of guiding children into adulthood is the release. But it's also a parent's greatest act of surrender. Still, you have to let them go. Start now.