The French aren't perfect, but they have some parenting secrets that really do work.

There are no grown-ups. We suspect this when we are younger, but can confirm it only once we are the ones writing books and attending parent-teacher conferences. Everyone is winging it, some just do it more confidently.

Your first attempt will be terrible.... Remember that everything great you see started out as someone else's bad first draft..... Whenever someone sends me a manuscript and says, 'It just flowed out of me,' I usually think: Let it flow back into you for a while.

To be a different kind of parent, you don't just need a different parenting philosophy. You need a very different view of what a child actually is.

The French believe that kids feel confident when they're able to do things for themselves, and do those things well. After children have learned to talk, adults don't praise them for saying just anything. They praise them for saying interesting things, and for speaking well.

When you're wondering whether she's his daughter or his girlfriend, she's his girlfriend.

The French aren't perfect, but they have some parenting secrets that really do work.