The best time to start giving your children money is when they will no longer eat it. Basically, when they don't put it in their mouths, they can start putting it in their bank.

Our goal as a parent is to give life to our children's learning--to instruct, to teach, to help them develop self-discipline--an ordering of the self from the inside, not imposition from the outside. Any technique that does not give life to a child's learning and leave a child's dignity intact cannot be called discipline--it is punishment, no matter what language it is clothed in.

Because they are children and for no other reason they have dignity and worth simply because they are.

There is something profoundly satisfying about sharing a meal. Eating together, breaking bread together, is one of the oldest and most fundamentally unifying of human experiences.

The beauty of empowering others is that your own power is not diminished in the process.

Odors from decaying food wafting through the air when the door is opened, colorful mold growing between a wet gym uniform and thedamp carpet underneath, and the complete supply of bath towels scattered throughout the bedroom can become wonderful opportunities to help your teenager learn once again that the art of living in a community requires compromise, negotiation, and consensus.

When we use punishment, our children are robbed of the opportunity to develop their own inner discipline-the ability to act with integrity, wisdom, compassion, and mercy when there is no external force holding them accountable for what they do.