Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have anything to do with it.

If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.

To be himself, one neeeds to be free from the pressure of evaluative praise

How can we help a child change from undependable to dependable, from a mediocre student to a capable student, from someone who won't amount to very much to someone who will count for something. The answer is at once both simple and complicated: We treat a child as if he already is what we would like him to become.

When gentle persuasion [of children] falls on deaf ears, we resort to ridicule and rebuke. Then we return to threats and punishment. This is the modus operandi of a mutual frustration society.

I have great faith in 'ordinary parents.' Who has a child's welfare more at heart than his ordinary parent? It's been my experience that when parents are given the skills to be more helpful, not only are they able to use these skills, but they infuse them with a warmth and a style that is uniquely their own.

The search for a personal identity is the life task of a teenager.