Child Development Quotes

"The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother's side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother and become fully independent" "It is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one’s children will become than for the children one’s “mature” critics often are." "In play, a child is always above his average age, above his daily behavior" "I think sometimes when children grow up, their parents grow down" "The child who has increased his own independence with the acquisition of new capabilities, can do more and more things by himself. This is a child who has become a person who knows, thinks and acts spontaneously." "A child in work becomes a person with many attributes, one who is independent, able to make decisions, open to the world and aware of the world around him." "Plainly, the environment must be a living one, directed by a higher intelligence, arranged by an adult who is prepared for his mission." "The child has a different relation to his environment from ours. The child absorbs it. The things he sees are not just remembered; they form part of his soul." "Adults move because their will directs them. The small child is urged on by the life force expressing itself spontaneously through him." "Education must begin at birth." "The greatest damage done by neglect, trauma, or emotional loss is not the immediate pain they inflict but the long-term distortions they induce in the way a developing child will continue to interpret the world and her situation in it" "The child thus prepared is really an inexhaustible reservoir" "A child’s brain needs healthy experiences to develop properly" "If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves." "Children need the emotional presence of their caregivers to thrive"