Most of us would do more for our babies than we have ever been willing to do for anyone, even ourselves.

As parents it is well to be aware of the tendency to equate energetic activity with contest. Our children's worth does not dependon their ability to trounce one another. And surely we can find ways of frolicking and being healthy and active together in some joyful, free way that is not an adversary relationship.

Never miss an opportunity to allow a child to do something she can and wants to on her own. Sometimes we're in too much of a rush--and she might spill something, or do it wrong. But whenever possible she needs to learn, error by error, lesson by lesson, to do better. And the more she is able to learn by herself the more she gets the message that she's a kid who can.

More than what we say or do, the way we are expresses what we think it means to be alive. So the articulate parent is less a telling than a listening individual.

Everything that happens is either a blessing, which is also a lesson, or a lesson which is also a blessing.

We do not have to get our children to learn; only to allow and encourage them in their learning. We do not have to dictate what they should learn; only to discern and respond to what it is that they are learning. Such responsiveness is at once the most educational and the most loving.

A sense of worthiness is a child's most important need.