Helping children at a level of genuine intellectual inquiry takes imagination on the part of the adult. Even more, it takes the courage to become a resource in unfamiliar areas of knowledge and in ones for which one has no taste. But parents, no less than teachers, must respect a child's mind and not exploit it for their own vanity or ambition, or to soothe their own anxiety.
Dorothy H CohenChildren of eight and nine who love their mothers dearly will cross to the other side of the street when they see her coming, if they happen to be with friends, because to greet or be greeted by their mothers in the presence of peers is to acknowledge having been (and perhaps still being) a baby.
Dorothy H CohenNo school can work well for children if parents and teachers do not act in partnership on behalf of the children's best interests
Dorothy H CohenThey [parents] can help the children work out schedules for homework, play, and television that minimize the conflicts involved inwhat to do first. They can offer moral support and encouragement to persist, to try again, to struggle for understanding and mastery. And they can share a child's pleasure in mastery and accomplishment. But they must not do the job for the children.
Dorothy H CohenThe frantic search of five-year-olds for friends can thus be seen to forecast the beginnings of a basic shift in the parent-childrelationship, a shift which will occur gradually over many long years, and in which a child needs not only the support of child allies engaged in the same struggle but also the understanding of his parents.
Dorothy H CohenTelevision programming for children need not be saccharine or insipid in order to give to violence its proper balance in the scheme of things.... But as an endless diet for the sake of excitement and sensation in stories whose plots are vehicles for killing and torture and little more, it is not healthy for young children. Unfamiliar as yet with the full story of human response, they are being misled when they are offered perversion before they have fully learned what is sound.
Dorothy H Cohen