From a child's play, we can gain understanding of how he sees and construes the world--what he would like it to be, what his concerns are, what problems are besetting him.

Punishment may make us obey the orders we are given, but at best it will only teach an obedience to authority, not a self-control which enhances our self-respect.

Fairy tales are loved by the child not because the imagery he finds in them conforms to what goes on within him, but because--despite all the angry, anxious thoughts in his mind to which the fairy tale gives body and specific content--these stories always result in a happy outcome, which the child cannot imagine on his own.

Although we like to think of young children's lives as free of troubles, they are in fact filled with disappointment and frustration. Children wish for so much, but can arrange so little of their own lives, which are so often dominated by adults without sympathy for the children's priorities. That is why children have a much greater need for daydreams than adults do. And because their lives have been relatively limited they have a greater need for material from which to form daydreams.

What children learn from punishment is that might makes right. When they are old and strong enough, they will try to get their ownback; thus many children punish their parents by acting in ways distressing to them.

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.

Parents ought, through their own behavior and the values by which they live, to provide direction for their children. But they need to rid themselves of the idea that there are surefire methods which, when well applied, will produce certain predictable results. Whatever we do with and for our children ought to flow from our understanding of and our feelings for the particular situation and the relation we wish to exist between us and our child.