A child... who has learned from fairy stories to believe that what at first seemed a repulsive, threatening figure can magically change into a most helpful friend is ready to believe that a strange child whom he meets and fears may also be changed from a menace into a desirable companion.

Whoever influences the child's life ought to try to give him a positive view of himself and of his world. The child's future happiness and his ability to cope with life and relate to others will depend on it.

The good enough mother, owing to her deep empathy with her infant, reflects in her face his feelings; this is why he sees himselfin her face as if in a mirror and finds himself as he sees himself in her. The not good enough mother fails to reflect the infant's feelings in her face because she is too preoccupied with her own concerns, such as her worries over whether she is doing right by her child, her anxiety that she might fail him.

Most advice on child-rearing is sought in the hope that it will confirm our prior convictions. If the parent had wished to proceedin a certain way but was made insecure by opposing opinions of neighbors, friends, or relatives, then it gives him great comfort to find his ideas seconded by an expert.

You can't teach children to be good. The best you can do for your child is to live a good life yourself. What a parent knows and believes, the child will lean on.

Creativity stands at the center of all education.

Raising children is a creative endeavor, an art rather than a science.